Odd One Out
by intrasonic
Summary: A story of someone's quest to NOT find herself. Sometimes, it's harder than it sounds. [On Hold]
1. Chapter 1

Valley of the Wind Productions presents...   
Odd One Out   
A Discworld fanfiction by Intrasonic 

* * *

Author's Prologue

I've always wanted to try a Discworld fanfic. Here goes nothing... 

Discworld timelines, insofar as actual years go, can be a real bitch to determine sometimes. I did the best I could, but in the end, I was forced to guess at a few details. This story can be considered to take place after both "Carpe Jugulum" and "The Fifth Elephant". Probably after "The Truth" as well. Very frequent reference will be made to "Lords and Ladies", and it would be a good idea to be familiar with the books featuring either the witches or the Watch. Obviously, I'll _try_ to work them in properly, but prologues are for warning people about this kind of stuff. 

The main character is actually one that I picked out after becoming fairly certain that absolutely nothing was done with her in future books. If you happen to know that I'm wrong, please let me know? Preferably before I get too far into this story. 

Footnotes are noted by ( ) brackets, with the footnotes placed at the bottom of the current paragraph. Theoretically, this should reduce the up-and-down scrolling required to read them(1). 

*****   
(1) Theoretically, anyway.   


* * *

Chapter One

* * *

This is a story that starts on the road. Or rather, in a very short time, it will. It hasn't actually started yet, so the reader can relax for the moment. While waiting for the actual story to start, the story will stall by providing some meaningless details about the road that the story will be starting upon. 

To be honest, it's actually a very plain and uninteresting road.   
Composed mainly of a mixture of dirt, gravel, more dirt, and the occasional patch of stubborn grass smart enough to take advantage of the regular influx of fertilizer, it held no surprises for a traveller of even minimal experience. Bumps and pits was scattered along its surface, new ones regularly being created by wagons swerving to miss the existing ones. By this point, there were no longer any smooth paths, only ones that didn't manage to bump small but important bits of luggage off the back of the carts.   
This particular section of road happens to be situated on the immediate outskirts of a village, and has probably been given an original and dynamic name such as Main Street or King Street. But most of the people have never been out of the village, and the occasion city visitor has yet to enlighten them to reality.   
Really, this road has only one notable feature, and its not even a unique one at that. Because there are hundreds - even thousands - of roads around the world, and they don't lead to a city named Rome. Or even a city named Nome or Dome.   
Because this is the Discworld. And on the Disc, all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork(1). 

*****   
(1) Not necessarily of their own free will, but they do.   


* * *

At this point, the previous part will now be revealed to contain a glaring and obvious lie. While it was not the beginning of the story, unfortunately, neither is this part. The beginning of The Story happened quite some time ago, actually. And this story will not be revisiting it in detail. At least, not all at once. But the start of THIS story begins now. At least, it probably does. Just smile, nod, and agree, or we'll never get anywhere. 

The chosen location for the start of this story is in a building, situated alongside the road that wasted so much space in the first section. There's a sign up front that reads "Ye Sto Telle Sulfer Springs", and some smaller writing underneath that says "now sulfer-free". Incidentally, were the owner of the building questioned under bright lights by men with starch-forged suits, he would eventually give in and admit that, at no point in the business' history, had the hot springs ever possessed any noticeable amount of sulphur. But, as everyone knows, people will pay more for the privilege of swimming in hot water that smells like rotten eggs. Or in this case, once smelled like rotten eggs.   
Inside this building, there are a number of areas suitable for (and designed for) bathing. While at the present moment, the building is mostly deserted, there are still a few people making use of its facilities.   
And believe it or not, this story is actually going to focus on one of those people. 

The person is question is presently situated in a shallower portion of the springs. The water doesn't quite reach her shoulders, but this is only because she's kneeling and in the process of submerging her head and rinsing a mass of shampoo lather out of her hair.   
After a short period of vigorous scrubbing, the person comes up for air, allowing anyone who overlooked the pronouns in the last paragraph to see that the person in question is most definitely female. More specifically, it's a young lady.   
While this isn't that kind of story, it's worth noting that the young lady is a rather attractive example of such. Not in a blatant or deformed way, but in a quite normal fashion. A figure that possesses all the necessary bits in their proper amounts. Furthermore, it was lacking any details that would normally detract from the good parts, which is actually a much rarer thing. It was a form suited to words such as _circumference_, _radii_, _length_, _width_, _curvature_, _mass_, _gravity_, _tension_, _symmetry_, _proportion_, and _balance_. And many other words as well, but at this point, the mathematicians and physicists all need to go have a cold-shower and a lie-down.   
Even more detail could be provided, but it's already been stated that this isn't _that_ kind of story. But for the record, if it _was_ that kind of story, this young woman has recently turned eighteen and would have been legal in a lot of areas(1). But that's another topic altogether. And amazingly enough, those details wouldn't have been the most interesting thing about this young woman.   
Because in the meantime, this young woman has finished tying her mass of light-blond tresses up, and has turned away from this increasingly-voyeuristic story to leave the hot-springs. She is now clean, and devoid of dirt (and amazingly, the smell of sulphur). And despite some other excellent options, one's eyes are immediately drawn to her shoulder. More specifically, towards her left shoulder.   
Because there is a scar.   
It's not a particularly big one, but on skin that miraculously managed to ride puberty without so much as the faintest pimple or mole, it stands out like a well-placed whoopee cushion at a flute convention. It's a rather unusual scar, in that it's simply a round mark, devoid of any signs of tearing, ripping, or infection. It's the kind of scar that would result from a pointed object cleanly entering, then cleanly being removed by a talented healer, which shouldn't result in any scar at all.   
But this scar was more than skin-deep. 

_Much_ deeper. 

*****   
(1) Possibly even yours.   


* * *

By the time this story can refocus on the young lady, she's made her way to the changing room. She's wrapped herself with a large towel that has also managed to cover the scar, hence restoring her appearance to its former strength. Her long tresses have been wrapped atop her head in a second, smaller towel, awaiting the ministrations of a comb in the near-future.   
Both towels are completely black, and unlike most hotel and inn towels, were actually large enough to respectfully cover a person while they went about retrieving their clothes from a suitcase.   
The strange thing, an observer would notice, was that one could almost _imagine_ that the bigger black towel was actually a black dress. And the second towel could be a pointed black hat with a mysterious-looking veil around it. And perhaps the fingernails would even be painted black.   
And were all that the case, the person would have seemed... different. Still the same person, but somehow changed. She would be mysterious and knowledgeable... even _powerful_. She would be regarded in awe by those around her, with many wanting to follow in her footsteps. And she wouldn't have an ordinary name. It would be a special name, one that hinted of intrigue, the occult, and of dark, romantic secrets. 

It would probably be a name like "Diamanda". 

Alas, even if the observer managed to see this, a closer look at the suitcase would have instantly dispelled all illusions. Because it had a name tag affixed to it, upon which was clearly written "Property of Lucy Tockley", which was clearly as un-mystical a name as one could ever hope to find. Even if the reader was exceptionally idealistic, 'Lucinda' would instantly squelch all doubts.   
Within a surprisingly short period of time, the now-named young lady had dressed and groomed herself into an image suitable for public presentation. She was now a person prepared to go places, and to consider the luggage, she was travelling light. After one last inspection of herself in the mirror, she nodded approvingly, then headed outside to the road.   
The road that lead to Ankh-Morpork. 

* * *

Two buildings down from 'Ye Sto Telle Sulfer Springs', there was another building. This one bore a sign reading 'Ye Sto Telle Trans Porte Servise'. Outside was an open-air coach attached to a single horse. It bore a lot similarities to the standard inter-city/village/town coach, except that it didn't ride as smoothly, didn't have a roof for when it rained, and the driver wasn't required to shave once a month. It was, however, accordingly less expensive to take, which was to say that it didn't involve selling one's first-born child.   
There was a man presently feeding the horse, and it was quite likely that he also did the driving and the cart repairs when necessary. Despite having a rather unrefined look about him, he also bore the appearance of someone who was willing to be polite and patient with the rest of the world, at least until it stopped returning the favour. In other words, he was so generic that his name won't even be provided for this story.   
"G'day, miss," he called out, seeing the aforementioned young woman approaching. "Ye all set to be goin'?"   
She nodded, but didn't provide anything further, except for her lone piece of luggage.   
The man took it, placing it in the luggage rack. "So who are ye? I've got a Miss Lucy Tockley on m'list here...?"   
Nod.   
"A pleasure to meetcha, Miss Tockley, I'll be ye driver today. We'll be leavin' shortly, soon's the other lady gets here. In the meanwhile, ye can have yer choice o' seating."   
With a minimum of effort, she used one of the three side steps to climb the cart, then selected one of the two seats facing forwards. And did nothing further.   
The man nodded. This passenger apparently wasn't the talkative type, but he didn't really mind. There were different ways of being quiet, and this young woman's version wasn't the sort that implied any offense. But if she did talk, it would probably be to say something worth hearing. Besides, he had a hunch that the _other_ young lady was going to more than make up for it.   
Speaking of the devil... "Don't leave without me!!!"   
"That'd be her now," the man noted, sounding almost a little weary.   
It probably was. Several hundred feet away, another young woman was dragging a collection of suitcases that quite possibly outweighed her. Unfortunately, this was turning out to be a problem, because nature had not seen fit to give this particular young lady muscles of iron and rock. Or even, when it came down to it, of lead.   
It has already been stated that the driver was a general decent individual. So it's worth noting that he actually hesitated before walking over to give her a hand with her things. Especially since the only possible chance she could have had to give a bad impression would have involved merely buying tickets in the first place.   
"Miss Irie von Celeste? I'll take that for ye," the man offered, upon reaching her.   
She glared at him, or at least did her best to glare at him. She was one of those people gifted with an eternally pleasant and cheerful face, which was poorly suited for some expressions. "That's what _you_ think! You're just assuming that because I'm a woman, I'm too weak to take care of myself!"   
"Not at all miss," the man replied wearily, the expression on his face indicating that he had expected this from the outset. "I just-"   
"Well, you can just forget it! I'm not some old-fashioned woman who needs men to do everything for her! I'm perfectly able to handle my own affairs!!!"   
"I... can see that," the man lied. What he didn't mention was that whatever else she could handle, her luggage wasn't one of those things.   
"And don't you forget it!" she snapped.   
Several long minutes passed.   
Several more long minutes passed, by which time the second young lady and her luggage had covered the impressive distance of ten yards, with possibly another ninety to go.   
"Driver?"   
The man looked up, realizing that the first young woman had made her way over and was also watching the spectacle herself. It was also the first time he'd heard her say anything. "Yes, Miss Tockley?"   
"I can't help but think," she noted, "that she probably paid in advance, just as I did."   
"Yer right about that, miss." And more was the pity, he silently added.   
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I can't help but think that what a fare _actually_ does is to give one the opportunity to board a the cart at a particular time. And I don't believe the form I filled out actually _requires_ the driver to wait past that particular time."   
It was the type of statement only a lawyer would normally make, but the driver could still remember the scene involved in just _selling_ the ticket. And despite his aforementioned good nature, he was still human. "Miss Tockley... I don't reckon I can find a flaw in that argument o' yers." 

Several minutes later, after a brief discussion over the fact that someone did NOT need the help of a man to climb up the side of the cart, the young ladies and their luggage, were on the cart, with the driver steering the horse down the road to Ankh-Morpork 

* * *

"...and so I said to him, 'How _dare_ you assume that just because I'm a woman I'm not as good at tree-cutting'. And then he gave me some nonsense about the axe weighing twenty pounds, and the trees being twenty feet around, and I could see that he was plainly nothing but a bigot, so I..."   
The driver pinched himself to stay awake. Normally the travelling was the part he loved best about his job. Sometimes the passengers were talkative and full of news. Other times, they were silent and this provided an opportunity to enjoy the scenery. But this was shaping up to be a trip he was going to do his best to forget.   
Miss Irie von Celeste just kept talking, non-stop. And talking. And _talking_. And it all had a common theme, which was beginning to give him something of an inferiority complex. Either that, or threatening to put him to sleep at the reins.   
In complete contrast was Miss Lucy Tockley, who after dredging up another technicality regarding fares, cart steps, and the lack of obligation on the driver's part towards people who refused assistance in climbing them, hadn't said another word. Somehow, she was actually managing to listen to non-stop dialogue without falling asleep. Her eyes looked rather glazed, but   
otherwise open and attentive.   
"...so I've decided to go to Ankh-Morpork, because everybody says that you can make it big there. I'm sure that such a wonderful city will have gotten over any foolish notions about gender-inequality. So, what about you?"   
The driver risked a glance backwards.   
Miss Tockley's eyes abruptly un-glazed, and she blinked. "I'm sorry?"   
"I asked you why you're going to Ankh-Morpork?"   
Silence.   
"Miss Tockley?"   
The reply had the sound of a very carefully-formulated answer. "I'm going to Ankh-Morpork... to not be a witch."   
The driver returned his gaze to the road ahead. He didn't know what that statement meant, but it definitely sounded like a prelude to a flashback. 

* * *

She couldn't quite remember the When anymore, but the What was more defined.   
Put simply, Lucy Tockley had realized one day that more of world tended to make sense to her. This is of course, highly unusual for anyone, to say nothing of a child. The vast majority of the world _doesn't_ take sense to anybody, but the human brain has long since learned to simply ignore and filter that part out, turning its reserves towards dealing with the 1% that does make sense(1). But Lucy actually understood some of that remaining 99%, even if she hadn't learned the words to try and explain them to anybody else.   
And then her mother died. This would be considered a tragic thing by anyone, but in the Ramtops region, particularly in Lancre, a little girl would learn a lot about life from her mother. Things like cooking, cleaning, bandaging. Even things related to the birds and the bees(2) would be passed down from mother to daughter.(3) And at the tender age of 7, Lucy hadn't gotten around to learning some of those things yet. And Old Man Tockley had miraculously possessed the presence of mind to know, as well as plenty of neighbours to tell him(4), that he wasn't up to the task. So he sent her to school to learn those things. For ten years.   
And Lucy learned many things. The level-headedness and careful-mindedness that was second-nature to anyone from Lancre was given a whole new playground to swing from. She went to school in Sto Lat, and learned a lot about the 3 R's. She learned how to work with long pages of numbers and make them make sense. She learned why the memos of Leonard of Quirm were superior to the stories of Creosote. She learned how to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle. She even learned about the birds and the bees, at least, as far as the basic mechanics were concerned.   
And outside of class, Lucy learned even more. She learned how to get a dollar's change from 75 pence. She learned why casinos gave the winner's free drinks. She learned how to sneak out of securely-guarded dormitory rooms. She even learned about the rest of the birds and the bees, if not through direct experience.   
Sometimes, the things she learned were a mystery to everyone else. She learned why Carter the Jeweller could sell his jewellery for such a low price and still make so much money. She learned why Vincent the Chicken Farmer was seeing his chickens disappear at approximately the same rate that Joseph the Other Chicken Farmer's flock was increasing. And although she could be stumped by a long math or geography problem like any other student, the trick questions that the teachers would occasionally produce were transparent before she'd even bothered to pick up his pen.   
Gifted, the teachers had said. A know-it-all, some students had said. A know-too-damn-much, was the opinion of any less-than-honest businessman in town. But all the things were obvious, she had always maintained. So perhaps it wasn't very surprising that, after almost a decade of schooling, through only a little fault of her own, she had few friends and no close ones. There are very few people who trust someone who _understands_ more than they do.   
So it was that, after ten years of schooling, despite a commendable academic record, Lucy Tockley decided to return home to Lancre. 

*****   
(1) And does its best to make that part as complicated as possible.   
(2)Which is a strange euphemism for the whole business, because there are some marked   
differences between how these animals handle their procreation and how humans do it.   
(3) And from father to son, which explains a lot of the misunderstandings that occur later on.   
(4) The people of Lancre have always believed in telling each other _exactly_ how things were,   
especially when the other person doesn't want to know.   


* * *

"...so I quit my job at the butchers, because the men refused to accept that I might actually take some _pride_ in my work. So I took the cart to the next town, Sto Felis - you wouldn't _believe_ the man driving that cart - and I heard about this other woman who was working at the post office in the complaints department. She apparently doing an incredible job, and I desperately wanted to meet her and tell what a good job she was doing, setting an example for woman-kind everywhere, but when I got there, they told me that she was laid-off-"   
"The people's complaints were being dealt with too quickly,"(1) Lucy agreed, a larger bump in the road having jolted her into consciousness long enough to catch the last part of Irie's monologue.   
It wasn't that Irie was a _bad_ person. It was simply that she tended to grate on people like eating 10 pounds of sugar in five minutes. To use the previous-described Lucy as a comparison, if they were both trading cards, Irie would have possessed a +5 under a lot of the physical attributes, except for the ones where a -5 was more desirable. She would have been given a +10 in the area of "impotent fury towards the world". And under the heading of "capable of warping her own perception of reality", there would be at least a +50. (2) The entire combination was simply offsetting to anyone forced to listen to it for any period of time.   
"-which I'm sure was just their way of dealing with the fact that they felt inferior and inadequate in the face of the woman's superior talent and intelligence. But they said that she had gone to Sto Telle, so I decided that I would never get any fair treatment where I was, and decided to see if I couldn't run into her there. When I arrived, I heard that she was working as an accountant and secretary for the local watch, and had completely cleaned up the watch, ever going so far as to break a major crime ring, but after only a few days had been released again-"   
"The crime ring was mostly made up of watchmen," Lucy agreed.   
"-I realized that men were the same everywhere, and this incredible woman was simply a victim of it all. But I _knew_ she wouldn't let a little thing like that discourage her, and I heard that she was headed to Ankh-Morpork. So here I am now!"   
At the front of the cart, the driver had been listening to both people, and made a few conclusions of his own. And was presently torn between trying to hire the one woman and hoping that the other one would accidentally fall off the cart while it passed over a bridge. He settled for an attempted topic change. "I... hear there's some impressive women over in Lancre," he   
ventured.   
"You have _no_ idea," Lucy muttered. 

*****   
(1) Everyone knows that people in the complaints department are employed as punching bags.   
They aren't actually supposed to make things _better_.   
(2) And under 'Vocal Endurance', there would be at least a +100.   


* * *

Witches.   
When you're a person far away from home, with only a few casual friends, and too much time on your hands, you find things to occupy it with. And while she might have very well become a genius and made brilliant discoveries after investing all that time into her studies, Lucy found something else to catch her interest.   
Witchcraft.   
Most people dismissed it as nothing but superstitious folklore, but Lucy had grown up in the Ramtops, where witches were very real and present. And with so many stories floating about, only a fool would completely dismiss the stories about witches like the legendary Black Aliss. Witchcraft was real and alive, for someone with the will and time to learn, and Lucy fit that category perfectly. She started talking with the fortune-tellers and unlicensed doctors in the area, straining their claims for credibility. She investigated the less-used areas of the school library, and sifted the words for grains of truth. And before she left for Lancre, she learned a few things.   
When she arrived home in Lancre, the local witches were apparently on vacation, but there were still plenty of avenues of knowledge available. And Lucy was quick to search them all, even picking up a small but surprisingly devoted following. The people in Lancre held less hostility for those who could understand the world better than they could. Those kind of people were called witches, and whatever else anyone thought about them, they were accorded more than a small degree of respect.   
With her little group of followers in tow, they did all manner of occult things. They read cards, drew magic circles, learned about the mystical phases of the moon, and even consulted Mario boards (1). They adopted more exotic, witchy names such as Magenta, Perdita, and Diamanda. But even though this was exciting, Diamanda _nee Lucy Tockley_ still wanted more. She _knew_ there was more to witchcraft than what their little coven had played at so far. And after hearing a few folktales, she decided where she would find it.   
Elves.   
The fair-ones. The enchanted folk. Not so much 'magical people' as raw magic with a little bit of people to hold it all together. Magics would be second nature to such people, and after some more reading, she learned how to reach them.   
Diamanda was by herself the first time she sought out The Dancers. Eight stones set in a circle, said to mark the gate into the Elf World. One book seemed to suggest they might actually be _blocking_ the elves, but that was obviously gibberish. Everyone _knew_ elves were beautiful and happy and graceful people.   
The books had said that dancing around the stones would open the gateway... so Diamanda had danced. She had danced with all her heart, bringing forth the semesters of gym class that had been determined to teach lady-like skills to young girls. Some of the books had also suggested that a lack of clothing was beneficial, so she'd done that part too.   
She had danced through the night, but the dancing at the end was far different then the dancing at the beginning. It was... more inspired, as though another power was guiding her through the steps, and power was exactly what she had come seeking in the first place. A tentative link had been formed between the two worlds, and both sides had found each other in agreement...   
...and when Diamanda had finally fallen to the ground in exhaustion, the woman had appeared before her. She had been beautiful beyond description, with gorgeous red hair that sparkled around her exquisitely featured face. There had been stars and moons across the sky, and colourful lights that both dazzled and inspired awe.   
And the woman had told her things. Things that she'd never heard or dreamed of before. Knowledge lost to frail humans minds long ago, but preserved in the world of the elves. And this woman, this wonderful, beautiful, woman had shared this knowledge and power with her. 

*****   
(1) Closely related to the Ouija board. *rim shot*   


* * *

"-I passed through Lancre some time ago," Irie was saying, "but the women there aren't interested in anything except housework and raising kids. They're so blind to their own potential, it was all I do to keep from lecturing them all about it. There's some witches there too, and they seem pretty independent, but they never to want to _do_ anything-" 

* * *

Witches.   
Real witches.   
With her newfound power and knowledge, Diamanda had been quick to teach the rest of the coven. They had quickly become the talk of the town, both them and their exploits. They even did the dancing around the stones together, although it was somehow never quite the same as the first time.   
Then the Witches had arrived back home. And it had only taken a matter of days before Diamanda had met them face-to-face. The leader-of-sorts was Granny Weatherwax, who she had only remembered vaguely from her child-years. A tall, lean, and hard-edged woman who was probably forged, not born. And she had a stare that could burn a person up from the inside out.   
But Diamanda had rallied and withstood the woman, using her newfound knowledge and power. She had even taken the woman up on her challenge, facing her down before the population of Lancre. And she had won the challenge.   
She _had_ won. She knew she had won. Nobody else seemed to realize this, but she _knew_ she had won the challenge. Yet everybody seemed quite definite that the old woman had won the match. And reacting the only way she knew how, she had gone back to the stones, back to the beautiful woman who had given her knowledge and power. And Granny Weatherwax had been waiting for her, as though there had never been any doubt in her mind at all. And screaming defiance at the old witch, Diamanda had plunged past The Dancers, determined to reach a world that understood how things worked.   
That was where Diamanda began to learn how the world _really_ worked. And it didn't work the way she had thought it did. She could remember bowing before the elf woman, her mind effortlessly bent around someone else's will, even as Granny Weatherwax fought back. She could remember a frantic attempt at escape, and then a numbing cold spreading through her shoulder, then through her entire body.   
Things after that were muddled, but she could remember enough to try and realize what had happened. The badly-done play and the beautiful, yet terrible singing. The villagers falling before the glamour in droves. The elves randomly stabbing their copper knives into her helpless body to see where it hurt her the most. And then... nothing.   
She had awoken later on, to the news that the elves were gone. The witches had beaten and humiliated the elves, right down to their queen herself. No flashy lights and stars. Just soppy old pre-queen Magrat in an over-sized armour suit and holding an axe, followed by Granny Weatherwax single-handedly dragging a unicorn across the town square and getting it shoed.   
And from there, life went on as normal.   
And somehow, for Lucy Tockley, that was the worst part of it all. The village knew she had lost. They probably even knew that she was responsible for the elves appearing in the first place. But they didn't mind. Not even an accusing glare or a hushed whisper behind her back. Excrement had happened, but they had cleaned up and were now moving along in the way that Lancre people always did.   
Even her father didn't understand her depression. As far as he was concerned, it had been a little childish to think of fighting against Granny Weatherwax in the first place, but no real harm done. And besides, she had put up a better fight than the old King ever did, so she had nothing to be ashamed of.   
The worst thing was that they were probably right. 

* * *

"-Ankh-Morpork, ladies."   
"-and I just _know_ I'll make it in Ankh-Morpork. No more discrimination just because I'm a woman, so I'll make it big somewhere - oh, we're here?"   
"Sure as can be," the driver agreed, gesturing towards the massive walls of Ankh-Morpork. At least, they would have been massive if they weren't so full of holes that they looked like a grey line of Swiss cheese. "I'd take you into the city, but the smell spooks the horse."   
True enough, there was a slightly pungent odour hanging in the air, despite the fact that there was a brisk wind blowing into the city. It was, it was said, a smell that no other place on the Disc could hope to match. It was also a smell that no other place on the Disc would _want_ to match.   
Lucy lightly hopped down from the cart, grabbing her suitcase with one hand. "Thank-you," she said to the driver, "for the trip."   
He nodded, giving a brief glance back to where Irie was straining to get her luggage down from the cart. "I couldn't help but wonder, Miss Tockley... where'd ye learn t'sleep with yer eyes open like that?"   
She smiled faintly. "I went to school for ten years."   
He smiled too. "Well then, I reckon there _are_ some useful things t'be learned in school after all. Ye take care, y'hear? I reckon there's a proper place for anyone, even if they gots t'go to Ankh-Morpork to find it."   
"I hope so. I really do." 

* * *

In the end, it wasn't the humiliation that bothered Lucy, although it _was_ humiliating.   
She had challenged, won, and then learned that she hadn't truly known The Rules of the game. And for any witch, knowing The Rules was what it was all about, and she'd plainly demonstrated that she didn't in front of everyone in Lancre. She'd plainly demonstrated it in front of herself.   
To make it worse, she had screwed up so badly that the kingdom had almost been conquered by elves. And it had been her enemy, Granny Weatherwax, who had worked to save her. And it had been Granny Weatherwax who had saved the day. And it was Granny Weatherwax who had told her that the elf-taint was gone, and she was sure that Lucy would do well at whatever she set her mind to, especially if it involved any of the young men around Lancre.   
Yes, the humiliation was definitely there. And Lucy knew that the normal course of action would be to immediately start down the spiral of bitterness and self-destruction, devoting herself to revenge against the woman who had humiliated her. And she knew that whatever the plan was, it would inevitably fail in a spectacular fashion and provide more fodder for story-writers   
everywhere. So she knew better than to start down _that_ road.   
Knowledge, in her opinion, was highly overrated.   
But the worst part was that she had failed at being a witch. She had _known_ that she was supposed to be a witch, and she had failed in a spectacular fashion. Witchcraft didn't allow for failure, and she had _failed_. And the worst part was that she _still_ knew she was supposed to be a witch. Whether it was on account of a sixth-sense, a soul, an inner self, or something else entirely, she somehow _knew_ she was supposed to be a witch.   
And since reality had proven that knowledge to be wrong, therein lied the problem. She supposed that she could have simply settled down, found a handsome young man, married him, and raised a family and lived happily ever after. It wasn't as though she hadn't noticed some of the looks she was getting from some of the young men around town.   
But Lucy also knew that she would never be able to 'settle down' in her present state. For better or for worse, some part of her KNEW that she was supposed to be a witch. And the only way she'd ever get on with her life was to make that part of her realize that it was _wrong_.   
She would simply have to _not_ be a witch. 

* * *

It was harder then it sounded, not being a witch, Lucy reflected bitterly.   
As though burning all her occult things, and giving away her black clothing hadn't been enough. As though deliberately avoiding any contact with the Lancre witches hadn't been enough. As though leaving Lancre for the Sto Plains hadn't been enough. As though working at exceedingly plain and ordinary jobs ranging from retail to fashion to accounting wasn't enough.   
Somehow, the Witch eventually leaked through. No matter how un-witchy the job was, she would start noticing things that no one else did. She would handle matters in ways that weren't normal, and the matters would actually get _handled_. She did her best to repress it and ignore it, but every so often, it would manage to squeeze through long enough to make her life difficult.   
It was time for desperate measures, and that measure was Ankh-Morpork, the jock-strap of the Discworld. 

Lucy looked from side-to-side as she walked down the main streets of the aforementioned jock-strap. She was given the occasional glance from other people, but it took all types to make a cosmopolitan, and Ankh-Morpork had them all (and then some) in spades. Trolls, Dwarves, the Undead, Gnomes, Pixies, and of course humans... _no one_ was special here.   
It was a great big melting pot, Lucy decided. It was like banging together barrels of nitroglycerine, then watching the energy turned towards a thousand different, unique, and often conflicting tasks. In its basest form, Anhk-Morpork was a giant factory with a million employees who worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.   
And in this city of one million people, it would surely be impossible for any witch-ness to show through. She would find a normal job and become such an anonymous and un-special individual that the part wanting to be a witch would simply shrivel up and die. 

It was worth a shot, Lucy admitted to herself. She'd tried everything else. 

* * *

  
end Chapter 1 


	2. Chapter 2

Valley of the Wind Productions presents...   
Odd One Out   
A Discworld fanfiction by Intrasonic 

* * *

Chapter 2

* * *

There is a rule common throughout every universe. It's a rule so common, it's actually managed to hold true in the Discworld. That rule is: Thou shalt not tell thy boss to go to hell. Or anywhere else unpleasant, for that matter. Breaking the rule tends to lead to a variety of unpleasant circumstances in the near future. 

Up in the Oblong Office, in the Palace, the centre of Ankh-Morpork, at least in some sense of the word, Sir/Mister/Commander/Duke Samuel Vimes was beginning to seriously consider ignoring that rule. 

"...and I am giving consideration to the possibility that there might be _difficulties_ within the ranks of the Watch..." 

It wouldn't accomplish anything, Vimes knew, aside from having Vetinari tell _him_ where to go. Except that His Lordship employed certain people who would make sure he arrived at the destination.   
So Vimes resigned himself to standing at attention, staring at the tranditional spot on the wall, listening to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork explain that a problem existed. And when you were told that a problem existed, it was usually because _you_ were the problem, or else were expected to _fix_ the problem. Frequently both. 

"...So I am forced to question whether the Watch is perhaps _inadequate_ for the duties assigned to it. And as Captain Ironfounderson often says, the Watch is none other than the Watchmen. Thus, I am forced to question whether the Watchmen are _inadequate_." 

The man had a way of explaining things, and a great deal of it involved asking questions. He asked questions that you both already knew the answer to. He asked questions that you didn't want to answer. He asked questions about things that you had been hoping like hell he didn't even know about. And then, once your guilt/responsibility had been established, he would ask what _you_ were going to do about it.   
And you _would_ invent something, because you knew that if you didn't, _he_ would do something about it. 

Vetinari abruptly stopped speaking, as though something novel and unique had suddenly occurred to him. "Tell me, Commander, did _you_ have any thoughts on the matter?" 

It was an almost maddening process, and there were many who had lost the proverbial battle by speaking their minds. Or even worse, by trying to be 'cunning' and 'diplomatic'. The smarter people, namely the people who were still around and in charge of various public facilities, _didn't_ try to be cunning or diplomatic. They were the people who had briefly matched up against the Patrician's gaze, which was befitting of such words as icy, steely, piercing, knowing, ruthless, deadly, and many other similar words available in a thesaurus near you. These smarter people would just agree with the "questions", figure out what the hell he expected them to accomplish, agree to it, then desperately figure how to get it done. 

Vimes had faced the Patrician plenty of times to know how the game was played. He straightened slightly. "I would hate to think any of my men are being slandered, Sir."   
A slow nod. "Indeed, I would hate to think so too. But when a city fails to thrive, the leader is blamed."   
Unlike 99% of politicians, Vetinari never spread blame around. He placed it squarely upon the person who was able to solve the problem, which was why problems tended to become fixed in short order. Right now, the problem was the Watch, and he was going to place the blame entirely upon its commander.   
Vimes had somewhat resigned himself to that fact already. "Yes sir."   
"And when the Watch is failing to do it's duty, it is the Commander who must be held responsible."   
"Yes sir."   
"Exactly. Now, as I understand it, there was a matter of numerous officers quitting the Watch."   
"Yes sir."   
"This was while you were away in Uberwald, of course. And I have always believed that mitigating circumstances are not given their due credit. You could hardly have been expected to prevent such an incident at the time."   
"Sir."   
"But you have now returned. You have been returned for six months, in fact. And is it with great distress that I note a marked difference in the Watch's performance during the before and after of your trip. More specifically, it has decreased."   
"Sir."   
"Quite so. But I have the utmost confidence that you will be able to explain this to me."   
"Not everyone who quit came back, sir."   
"Indeed. I imagine it must have terribly distressed you to learn that they were doing well for themselves in other cities, and that taking up employment at a _different_ Watch was actually quite legal. I understand that Captain Ironfounderson experienced a mild amount of disillusionment over that fact."   
"I may yet have a chance to thank Mr. Slant for his interpretation, sir."   
"I'm certain that you will. And judging from the overtime portion of your budget, while the Watch is employing almost one hundred officers, only twenty-five are full officers. Apparently overtime is not such a mythical entity in the Watch after all."   
Vetinari had a way of quoting your words back to you, years later, and this was one of those instances. And all you could was wonder whether it was coincidence or how the hell he could have possibly heard you say it. Vimes had long given up on either choice. "They're only mortal, sir. Most of them, anyway."   
"The common solution is to arrange for more people to accomplish the work, you realize?"   
"I haven't had time to do that, sir. We're too understaffed to have time to hire and train more watchmen."   
"That is quite a conundrum," the Patrician agreed. "And I would be _fascinated_ to learn how you plan on solving it."   
Translation: You'd better have a plan, or one will be invented that may not involve you in a long-term sense.   
"We're busy dealing with the recent increase in Slab shipments," Vimes began, "but once we've dealt with that-"   
"Once you've dealt with that, Commander," Vetinari interrupted, "I imagine that the Watch will find another problem to with. The Watch is quite good at finding problems to deal with. And to its credit, it is _good_ at dealing with them. But I have noticed that it is quite lucklustre when the problem is _itself_."   
"Sir?"   
"I am told that the Watch has no facilities to handle its paperwork. I am told that some officers have suffered the loss of as many as nine grandmothers. I am told that there is rampant gambling. I am told that the Commander is an unrefined, common-mouthed simpleton."   
"Who told you that, sir?"   
"Does it matter?"   
"No sir. But compliments are hard to come by."   
Vetinari smiled. "Indeed they are. But the rest of what _they_ say is, unfortunately, less complimentary."   
Vimes exhaled quietly. "It's all we can do to keep up with the paperwork, sir. If we actually started reading it, we'd never get anything done. And we're _still_ getting paperwork dealing with the paperwork that Colon burned three months ago."   
The Patrician glanced down at his own desk, where there was a small variety of papers neatly stacked to the side. "Then you have my heartfelt sympathies, Commander. However, I am feeling generous at this particular moment. So I will make an _observation_."   
Interestingly enough, this was a rare statement for the Patrician. His usual approach was to _not_ offer any observations, and let the other person figure things out for themselves. This of course, despite popular folklore, usually resulted in the person making the wrong choice(1). Which led to Ankh-Morpork's present operating state, which was the envy of many other cities on the Disc (2).   
The reason was that it was much easier to count on a person to make a wrong decision, then it was to hope they made a right one. So if you counted on them making a mess of things, you could plan accordingly and come out ahead.   
As he was wont to do, the Patrician stood, employing his cane during the short walk between his desk and the window behind him. It was the sort of thing a normal person did when they wanted the next thing they said to sound more poetic to the listener. Not being a normal person, the Patrician tended to do it as a prelude to a remark of a more surgical nature.   
Looking out over the city, he exhaled quietly. "The situation I see before me, Commander, reminds me of a man building a house. A very tall house. A surprisingly good house, built from unassuming rubbish in a surprisingly short period of time. And then someone came along and pulled a few pieces of the foundation out from under it."   
Vimes didn't say anything, but the look on his face indicated that the analogy wasn't entirely lost on him.   
"And when the building collapsed," Vetinari concluded, "it was subsequently revealed that the foundation consisted of only a few strong members."   
"Sir."   
"Just like a building, commander, the Watch needs a strong foundation. You have done... well for yourself. Indeed, the Watch as a whole has done well. But when the storm strikes, the extraneous portions of the building are blown away. A pruning of the tree, if you will. And you must hope that the remaining branches are the ones that will bear the fruit."   
"Sir."   
"Quite so," the Patrician agreed. "Now, don't let me keep you any longer." 

*****   
(1) At which point the Patrician would make the observation that they had screwed up severely.   
(2) Not that they'd ever admit it.   


* * *

Upon arriving in Ankh-Morpork, a newcomer learns two things very quickly. One, it's a BIG city. The biggest city in the Discworld, in fact, the official census listing in at over one million inhabitants. Considering this number is based on income tax returns however, it probably shouldn't be taken too seriously(1), and the actual population is probably even higher.   
The second thing they learn is that, while finding somewhere to spend the night is easy(2), finding somewhere to actually _live_ is insanely difficult. In Ankh-Morpork, the dry spots in the alleys are occupied, and even the cardboard boxes have "no vakansy" scribbled on them. The various Guilds in the city are good about sheltering their own members, but this is no help for a newcomer.   
A popular solution over the years has been to wander around until you see someone get killed, then quickly figure out where they live and grab the place for yourself. This is usually successful in the long run, although after a few weeks, you begin to seriously consider hurrying the process along. 

Lucy hadn't reached that stage quite yet, but she had a hunch she might, eventually. It wasn't as though she was having second thoughts about coming to Ankh-Morpork, but was it too much to ask for some sort of place to spend the night? Every single other town she'd passed through had at least possessed an inn with a few available economy rooms.   
She had to admit that it was vastly different than Lancre. Back home, a stranger passing through could easily get a room in a local inn. If they were exceptionally down on their luck, the generosity of the locals could be surprisingly deep, and a household could often spare a bed for a few days in exchange for some work done around the house or farm.   
At least she had a job lined up, Lucy reflected, trying to stay optimistic. A few questions had led to a part of town that somehow managed to be even dirtier, that the locals called The Shades. Apparently it was a popular occupation young ladies, being a Seamstress. While her experience with needlework was quite limited, Lucy admitted that she tended to learn fairly quickly. And a few articles of her own clothing could use some repairs too, and there was nothing wrong with learning how to do it herself. Upon reached the Guild of Seamstresses, however, she had determined _very quickly_ that she wasn't interested in the job.   
But on a related note, a recent hiring campaign by the aforementioned guild had been making for a city-wide shortage of young, single, reasonably attractive women. Despite the popular moniker that a woman in Ankh-Morpork had the choice of being a housewife, a midwife, or a seamstress, there were many smaller operations that saw the benefits of having a reasonably photogenic member of the female sex managing the more public half of their business.   
So it hadn't been too hard to get hired as a saleswoman in a small business. Actually, the man had approached her on one of the main streets - Treacle Mine Road, she remembered - and had asked _her_ if she wanted a job. After briefly ensuring that it had absolutely nothing to do with sewing, she had accepted and agreed to be at work tomorrow. Best of all, the pay was daily, and she could even make a commission. The owner of the business hadn't actually gone into detail on _what_ would be sold, but in a city like this, she could probably do worse, somehow. 

"LUCY!!! HIIIIII!!!!!"   
Lucy cursed upon hearing the greeting. No one knew her in this city, except...   
True to expectations, the same person who had almost inflicted her with terminal boredom on the trip here from Sto Telle, was now approaching her rapidly from another street. Irie von Something, if she recalled right.   
Interestingly enough, Irie wasn't carrying her huge array of luggage around anymore... was it possible that she'd actually managed to find somewhere to store it? Somewhere to _live_, even?   
"Are you looking for somewhere to live?!?" Irie asked, somehow radiating the same mix of cuteness, self-righteousness, and too many exclamation marks that she'd possessed during the trip to this city.   
Lucy almost laughed with delight, but she kept a poker face as best she could. "Yes, yes, I'm _definitely_ looking for somewhere to live..."   
"That's great!" Irie agreed happily. "We can look together!"   
The poker face instantly disappeared, replaced by a frown. "You haven't found a place yet?"   
"All the men who own the inns told me that they didn't have any free rooms, and even though I _knew_ they were just being spiteful to me because I'm a woman, I didn't see any point in patronizing their business if they were going to be like that!."   
Oh yes, she'd forgotten about _that_ part of the trip, Lucy reflected wearily. "But where is your luggage?"   
"I set it down while I asked about a room at one inn, and when I got back, it was gone! I think I must have misplaced it, but the men I asked just laughed at me! I think they were mocking my Quest For Independence!"   
Translation: Irie had, unsurprisingly, gotten ripped-off within a day of setting foot within Ankh-Morpork. It was probably dumb luck that had arranged for her to be elsewhere while her possessions were stolen.   
"That's too bad," Lucy agreed, although she actually meant it more in regards to her own Quest For A Bloody Place To Stay.   
"But I won't let such minor setbacks deter me!"   
"Of course not. You haven't lost your purse and the clothes you're wearing yet, after all."   
"Exactly! So we'll keep looking together!" 

*****   
(1) It was assumed that 1 in 10 people paid their taxes. Needless to say, this was probably hopelessly optimistic.   
(2) The Guild of Seamstresses always had its doors open.   


* * *

The Watch was just as Vimes had left it. Which was to say, it embodied chaos that wasn't quite controlled, but hadn't quite yet progressed to the uncontrolled state. People were entering and exiting, some willingly, some by force, a few unknowingly on account of having been forcibly subdued at an earlier point.   
A person with too much time on their hands might have likened it to Ankh-Morpork in numerous ways. 

"Good afternoon, Commander," Cheery greeted, en route to the old privy/her laboratory.   
"Good afternoon, Corporal. How is the Rapunzel case?" Vimes inquired curiously.   
"I just finished analysing the evidence, sir," she assured him. "And Igor says that the arms are still in good shape."   
Some playwrights had been performing a play called "Rapunzel", and it apparently involved a woman with ridiculously long hair letting someone else climb up it. How the woman got down afterwards was unclear, but Vimes suspected that it involved a haircut. Mysteriously, during the climax of the play, which involved the hero climbing up the hair, the actor with the hair had fallen from the building. The pavement had made a valiant effort to catch the woman, but the angle of the woman's neck had proved that a fifty-foot free fall was tall order to cushion.   
"And what does the evidence say?"   
"The evidence says that they used a fifty-foot iron chain disguised inside a long wing to climb up. And that the iron chain weighed approximately one and a half pounds per foot. And the hero climbing up weighed another 150 pounds."   
Vimes sighed, it having been a short leap to figure out what had happened. "Would I be correct in supposing that this woman wasn't able to lift over two hundred pounds with her head?"   
"Yes sir. I'm putting the cause of death as a No. 2."   
No. 1 was short for 'Suicide'(1).   
No. 2 was listed in the officer's handbook as 'Person removing themselves from the census through gross stupidity'. As a matter of fact, it wasn't uncommon for a person to manage to accomplish both a no. 1 and a no. 2 at the same time.   
"Good man-er, woman," Vimes approved, continuing towards the office. Right now, he needed thirty seconds of comparative silence. And no matter how busy the Watch House was, the office of Commander Vimes was something of a sacred ground. Somewhat, anyway.   
"Commander?"   
"Yes, what is it, Nobby?"   
An uncharitable soul might have suggested that Corporal Nobbs was the 'missing link'. If that was true, no one ever wanted to see other half of the link, because it probably wasn't a monkey, or even an orangutang.   
While Vimes shared that sentiment, he had long ago decided not to hold it against Nobby, because aside from the prospect of any him managing to have offspring, he was largely harmless, except by accident. When you dealt with Nobby, you were dealing with someone who had spent many years making a living as a collector of unwanted items from soldiers on battlefields(2), followed by a considerable stint as a copper where he was able to put his keen sense of avoiding trouble to good use. These days, with the Watch's new policy of _not_ avoiding the criminals, Nobby could still be counted on to not do something stupid, such as fight fairly, which was a quick way to commit a No. 1 in Ankh-Morpork.   
The corporal tossed him a piece of paper. "I got given this here message from the Guild of Assassins, demanding the release of one of their assassins."   
Vimes scanned it briefly. "That's the one who Sergeant Angua caught yesterday in the middle of an assassination run, wasn't it? The one that made us miss the delivery of slab?"   
"Right. He woke up a few hours ago."   
Vimes had never liked assassins, not would he in the foreseeable future. Or in any other future. And the assassin had actually managed to wound Angua before he learned the hard way that werewolves could afford to pay less attention to knives than other people. "Tell them that he's going to be released into the _river_ if compensation isn't sent for the Sergeant's injuries."   
Carrot made an appearance, briefly occupying the doorway in a manner that few others could manage. "That's alright, Commander. You know Angua heals quickly."   
For the millionth time, Vimes wondered how the hell Carrot could actually say that. After all it was _his_ girlfriend who'd gotten stabbed. He strongly suspected that if a madman tried to blow up all of Ankh-Morpork(3), Carrot would only press charges if the plan actually succeeded. Whereas Vimes would happily disarm the bomb by forcibly feeding it to the madman.   
"Carrot, the compensation is for her uniform. The blood doesn't wash out very easily, she says. And our budget is for paying salaries, not cleaning bills."   
The 'dwarf' gave that idea some thought, then nodding approvingly. "I'm sure the Assassin's Guild will welcome the opportunity to establish a measure of goodwill with the Watch."   
It shouldn't be possible to say that with a straight face, Vimes knew. It really shouldn't. "I'm sure they feel the same way, Carrot."   
"Maybe we should take a walk down the Street of Cunning Artificers and see if they can't design a special shirt for her..."   
Vimes spat, although to his credit, he aimed it at a nearby ashtray. "They're all a bunch of thieves."   
"No sir, they're Cunning Artificers. The thieves are all in the Guild of Thieves(4)."   
"The prices they charge qualify them, as far as I'm concerned. Nobby, give my message to the Assassin's Guild. Carrot, I want to talk with you in my office." 

*****   
(1) A very common occurrence in Ankh-Morpork. Fortunately, it was offset by a very low homicide rate. On account of it being so common, 'Suicide' was naturally assigned the first number, which is reasonably hard to misspell in a report.   
(2) On the basis that the owners didn't argue when he took them.   
(3) Arguably an attempt at civic improvement.   
(4) Or in the unlicensed cases, nailed to it.   


* * *

"...so that's why I didn't take the job at the tailor - it serves that man right for saying that his store only specialized in male fashions!"   
"Uh huh," Lucy agreed, just as she'd replied to the last few stories. One thing for certain, it took a special kind of person to be given five jobs on silver platters, and loose them all.   
It wasn't that Irie was a bad person. Lucy privately suspected that she couldn't have been, even if she'd tried really hard. She had at least as much intelligence as any one else, she had determination and drive, and she had the kind of figure that most younger girls desperately hoped they'd have when they grew up. Unfortunately, she also had a giant chip on her shoulder regarding the world's view on the female gender. Or at least, what she thought the world's view was.   
Irie was, Lucy had finally decided, the kind of person that the feminists of the world would be embarrassed to admit actually existed. _Very_ embarrassed. She would probably assist her chosen cause more by fighting for the other side.   
Lancre had no notion of such things, because the men didn't want to do the women's work, and the women thought the men's work was better suited for cattle. And anyone suggesting that women were somehow weaker would be laughed right out of the country(1). Or worse, if they had the misfortune to say it within earshot of a witch. But her time spent in Sto Lat had occasionally brought her in contact with such issues, and after giving it some brief thought, she decided not to really care until it actually affected her(2). 

"...and so I decided not to take that job as the blacksmith's apprentice!"   
"Uh huh." Lucy didn't know how serious a case of tunnel-vision was required to reach Irie's state of existence, but she desperately hoped it wasn't contagious.   
"So what about you, Lucy?"   
"Uh huh."   
"You said you wanted to be a witch?"   
That was enough to snap her out of her automatic response mode. "What? No, I said that I _didn't_ want to be a witch!"   
"Oh. Well, that can't be too hard, can it? Just don't be a witch."   
"You don't understand. You don't choose to be a witch, _it_ chooses _you_. You just _know_ that you're supposed to be a witch."   
This was apparently fascinating enough to get Irie to briefly drop the exclamation marks. "Oh. I've never known that, so I guess I'm not supposed to be a witch. How come you are?"   
Knowing that Irie wouldn't understand anyway, Lucy went for the honest approach. She didn't pretend to understand the specifics, but she already knew what they would add up to if she did. "Because I was stupid and messed around with things that I thought I understood."   
"Oh. So how are you going to not be a witch?"   
"I'm going to be as un-witchy as possible. Eventually, I'll stop _knowing_ that I'm supposed to be a witch. And then my problem will be solved."   
This tidbit of information was slowly digested. "So how do you be un-witchy?"   
It was surprisingly complicated, Lucy had been finding. "Well, you have to have a job and earn your own paycheck. You can't take any donations, and you can't wear a black pointed hat or black clothing. You can't mess around occult things or magic spells. You have to bathe regularly, and you can't do unusual things. And you have to make sure you don't see things that no one else can see. And you're not supposed to understand things that other people don't. You have to be completely un-special and very unnoticeable."   
"Um... that doesn't sound too hard. You just have to be normal, right?"   
"_Exactly!_" Lucy agreed, with surprising vehemence. "And every time I try, it messes up somehow. So I'm hoping that I can do it in Ankh-Morpork. You couldn't possibly be any less noticeable is _this_ city."   
"That sounds a little strange."   
Lucy bit back the first retort that came to mind, instead settling for a comparatively polite "Well, you can think whatever you like."   
"I didn't mean to insult you," Irie protested, giving the kind of expression normally found on kicked puppies.   
Lucy could feel any irritation already dissolving. "I know, I know, I didn't mean it that way. It's just... it has a way of messing up. You were talking about the person in Sto Felis in the complaints department? The person in Sto Telle in the Watch?"   
Irie's eyes didn't actually grow as wide as saucers, but they tried really hard. "You mean... that person was YOU?!? WOW!!! I've been trying to catch up you for three cities now! You're incredible!!!"   
"You see what I mean? I didn't even want to! I just wanted a normal job and a paycheck." Lucy sighed, feeling her fists try to clench up. "But I couldn't help it - it was like I wasn't actually part of the problem, but standing back and looking at the whole thing. I'd see the same two things that everyone else did, but I was standing back from the world and seeing how they were connected. And I don't _want_ to!"   
"Why not?"   
"Because that's what a witch does! And I don't want to be a witch!"   
"But why don't you want to be a witch?"   
"Because-" Lucy cut off her own explanation. "Look, I just don't, alright? I _really_ don't want to be a witch. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to not be one. So let's go find a place to stay that has a roof over it." 

*****   
(1) In Lancre, this is mostly a vertical trip.   
(2) The favourite response by everyone everywhere for everything.   


* * *

Vimes entered his office, Carrot dutifully following behind and shutting the door behind him. 

The office of Commander Vimes was legendary in its own right. Or, if not legendary, at least notorious. It was different things to different people, depending on why you were you were in there.   
To an assassin, entering it was known as a popular way to cripple yourself, since Vimes saved up his nastiest and most sadistic ideas throughout the day and tested them out on all the non-standard entrance points.   
To anyone stupid enough to come personally to complain about something the Watch had done recently, it was almost akin to the portal of the netherworld, except that they usually left wishing that they'd dealt with the demons.   
To the officers, it was the location of The Paperwork, which was the capitalized title informally given to the mound of paperwork that inevitably built up atop, beside, underneath, and inside Vimes' desk. While it had suffered a crippling blow six months ago at the hands of a then-unstable-Captain-Colon(1), it had survived and had quickly grown back to its original size, except that it had matured, growing tougher and more adept at hiding the more important pieces of paper.   
And to the Watch in general, it was the location of the mythical wage bill, which, once signed, bestowed wages upon the officers of the Watch. It was usually hidden near the bottom of The Paperwork, which could possibly sense its importance. 

"Now would be a good time to try and get some paperwork done, sir," Carrot noted, demonstrating the famed dwarfish talent for subtlety, which did not exist in any way, shape, or form.   
Vimes ignored his chief officer, crossing his office and taking a moment to stare out the window at the city. He didn't know what a good time to start on the Paperwork would be, but he was fairly certain that it would have been a long time ago.   
Carrot stood at attention, standing in front of The Paperwork, in front of the desk. Commander Vimes sometimes went silent, he had long since learned. And the man occasionally needed a brief moment of peace and quiet. Fortunately, Carrot was a person gifted with the patience of Boj (2), and remained standing in place. 

Vimes was in thought. Very deep in thought.   
He could remember when the Watch had been composed of only a few men. Even without going back to the time before Carrot had arrived and twisted their world around in his unique way, Vimes could remember when it had just been him, Colon, Nobby, and Carrot. And in their own, albeit thoroughly-unique way, each of them had cared about their job. They were   
_Watchmen_, and somehow, it had meant something beyond the eventual paycheck. Even if they were scared spitless in the face of danger, or actively trying to escape it, there would be some small portion of their brain thinking 'this man/woman/dwarf/troll/other should be arrested' or 'I wonder what else they're guilty of?'. When they said they were Watchmen, it _meant_ something. Even Nobby had recently stopped stealing his commander's cigars, although unconscious   
criminals still occasionally awoke in a poorer state. And slowly, the Watch had expanded, slowly recruiting more people.   
Yet incredibly enough, the new members had turned out to be watchmen in their own right. And it had slowly begun to dawn on the rest of Ankh-Morpork that perhaps the Watch wasn't the pathetic, inbred lifeform they had thought it was. The pay was actually decent, and you were accorded some respect. Not necessarily the good type, but being able to legally annoy Guilds was an accomplishment in itself. And the widow's benefits were second to none.   
And the Watch's membership had exploded, Vimes suddenly finding himself with over fifty officers to direct and order-around. It had been rather overwhelming at times, but he had managed. He had begun to have a sneaking suspicion that he actually _liked_ managing things. At any rate, the Watch had expanded and accomplished even more.   
And then Vimes had gone to Uberwald, and so had Carrot. And everything had gone to hell. As Vetinari had put it, the building had collapsed. And the Watch was left with a handful of watchmen. And surprisingly enough, many of the remainders were the original misfits themselves.   
There was Nobby, who carried around a certificate signed by the Patrician certifying that he was, in fact, human.   
There was Colon, who suffered a breakdown when given the position of anything besides Sergeant and ate for a very large number of people.   
There was Carrot, the biggest dwarf in Ankh-Morpork, who everybody, somehow, _knew_ was a king.   
There was Angua, who Vimes strongly suspected had been running out of towns to flee from by the time she'd wound up in Ankh-Morpork.   
There was Detritus, who had been declared too stupid to even work as a splatter at any bar in the city.   
There _had_ been Cuddy, trying to find a job more promising than stuffing rats with fortunes.   
There was Cheery, who had seriously failed at being both a dwarf and an alchemist.   
There was Dorfl, the first Golem to ever be given a will of his own.   
And of course there was Vimes himself, an ex-drunk who had somehow wound up marrying the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork.   
There were others around still too, Vimes knew. But they included people like Reg Shoe the zombie, Visit(-the-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets), Downspout the gargoyle, and Igor the... Igor.   
Vimes exhaled. "Carrot? Where have all the normal people gone?"   
"Sir?"   
Vimes didn't elaborate. Of course Carrot wouldn't understand, even if someone better at explaining things were trying to explain it. Carrot would probably say that _everyone_ was normal, in their own uniue way. He'd honestly mean it, and in his own way, he'd be right. But in Vimes' own way, the Watch was full of not-normal people, and he was their leader.   
And boy, was he ever qualified, Vimes decided, brushing a new growth of paper from his chair before sitting down. "We need to reorganize the Watch, Carrot. We're understaffed and over-extended."   
"We have almost one hundred officers, sir."   
"This city has a million people, Carrot. And three-quarters of our officers are still in training. And most of them that make the cut are going to go other cities before long. We need officers in for the long haul."   
"I know a lot of citizens who would join the Watch," Carrot pointed out.   
"Yes, but they wouldn't make it. We need _Watchmen_, Carrot. Not citizens signing up for a job. The house needs a stronger foundation."   
"The house, sir?" Carrot inquired, demonstrating the famed dwarfish talent for metaphors, which also did not exist in any meaningful sense.   
Vimes foolishly tried a dwarfish equivalent. "We can't mine any deeper until we've supported the walls and ceiling."   
"Actually, if you make it an open-pit mine, you don't have to worry about-"   
"Carrot, nevermind. What I'm saying is that we're scaling back the Watch's operations to something that we can manage properly. Once we have a few more good men-" Vimes saw Carrot's mouth beginning to open. "-a few more men that I approve of, we'll slowly expand our duties again."   
"If you think that's a good idea, sir."   
"Yes, I definitely think it's a good idea. I want you to oversee closing up the Watch house on Rolling Street, and I want it done by the end of tomorrow. Grab any two on-duty officers to help you out. Just bring back the useful things, and put dust sheets over the rest of it. Hopefully in the future, we'll be opening it up again."   
"Yes sir. I'll get started on it right away."   
"Good."   
Yet strangely enough, Vimes reflected, each of those 'not-normal' people had thrived in the Watch. Most of them had actually gained a surprising degree of respect/fear among their respective communities, and Vimes knew how _he_ got without a Watch to manage. For some of them, it was as though the Watch had given them a chance to stop dodging life and starting building one of their own. For others, it had simply been the chance to stop being whatever they were and become a _watchman_.   
"How are you and Angua doing lately?" Vimes inquired curiously.   
"Very well, sir," Carrot assured him. "I think that trip to Uberwald was just what she needed."   
That was another Carrot statement, Vimes knew. It was innocent as anything, and was made completely in earnest. But the _other_ interpretation was there too, and the scary thing was that both versions were probably right in their own sense. But Carrot hadn't been the one who had set off an industrial-sized signal flare inside the mouth of Angua's brother.   
Time for a slight topic change... "Are she and Detritus patrolling Clean Street?"   
"Yes sir, but I'm not sure if they'll find anything by now." 

*****   
(1) Fred Colon's sanity returned quickly upon his demotion to sergeant. However, he did considerably less paperwork these days.   
(2) A mythical man renowned for being very patient when Blind Io tested him with tormenting plagues and illnesses. Throughout them all, Boj endured and waited patiently, trusting that Io knew what was best.(3)   
(3) It wasn't very hard, actually. Blind Io had accidentally aimed all the plagues and illnesses on the next-door neighbour, who Boj didn't like very much.   


* * *

Upon coming to live in city of Ankh-Morpork, the average citizen quickly develops a sense of self-preservation(1). They learn how to be Innocent Bystanders and how to completely avoid hearing anything in a very loud room.   
For the citizens who inhabited Clean Street, they were in fine form today. 

"It's real quiet."   
"Yes. It is. I can't imagine why." 

Any readers wanting to take a guess at what Clean Street is like needs only recall the famous Ankh-Morporkian sense of humour. But anyone supposing that this general state of affairs comes from an abundance of traffic would be wrong. The heavier-travelled roads in Ankh-Morpork get more garbage and miscellaneous substances, but they also get ground much flatter into the pavement in the process. The end result is that the busier the street, the more well-kept it appears. The busiest streets need a hammer and chisel to defaced. The unused ones constantly go _squish_ or _crunch_ when you put your foot down.   
Yet strangely enough, Clean Street _was_ clean. Very, very, VERY clean.   
This was because Clean Street was the kind of street you travelled only when you _knew_ what you were looking for. And when you were looking for _that_ sort of item, you walked lightly. Clean Street handled the jobs that the Street of Cunning Artificers wouldn't even touch. Clean Street transported items that were too hot for AMPS(2) to handle. Clean Street was clean in an apparent sense, because Commander Samuel Vimes was just _waiting_ for an excuse to come down and take a closer at anyone stupid enough to provide an excuse.   
As a result, the inhabitants on Clean Street didn't litter, because that's the sort of thing that provides excuses. Garbage was carefully destroyed and disposed of, just as a business shreds their confidential documents. 

Today, Sergeant Angua and Sergeant Detritus were patrolling Clean Street, looking for excuses. And between a werewolf's senses and a troll's habit of considering things too obvious for normal people to pick up, it was a testament to Clean Street's _modus operandi_ that nothing had shown itself. 

"I don' tink we gonna find anything," Detritus muttered.   
"Probably not, no," Angua agreed. "If that damn assassin hadn't shown up last night, we would have had them!"   
The troll glanced sideways. "Dat man's cleaning his windows."   
"Feh. He's probably the only person in the city doing that. There should be a law against ridiculous cleanliness."   
"Dat'd be an excuse."   
"Vimes would go for it in a heartbeat," Angua agreed. "We might as well go show up on another street. They won't risk anything after last night around _here_." 

That was all they'd do, she knew. Show up.   
Disputes were _always_ resolved before Detritus could arrive on the scene, no matter how fast he got there. And it wasn't just the size factor, either, because trolls started behaving too. As Detritus would have put it, there were rocks, and then there were _rocks_. And life in the Watch had put the troll solidly into the second category, possibly necessitating a third category before long.   
Humans could train their whole life and turn their bodies into machines capable of shattering bricks and bouncing people three times their size. So could trolls. And Detritus had progressed beyond the 'granite' stage quite some time ago. And the Watch had taught him an impressive variety of ways to bash people on the head. 

"You want to grab a cup to go?" Angua inquired, gesturing towards a nearby drink stand that catered to all species.   
"S'good," the Troll agreed, changing his course. 

Disputes also tended to be resolved before Angua could arrive, although it took a slightly more observant eye to spot her in time, especially when she was a wolf. Her true nature wasn't widely known to the public, but the little portion in people's brains devoted to identifying predators tended to take note when she _looked_ at them. And the Ramtops Wolfhound had become a highly avoided breed of dog by the more knowledgeable circles.   
Because word got around in Ankh-Morpork quickly enough, and the word on the street for quite some time was that werewolves don't have to have big fangs and a tail to be dangerous. If humans and trolls could train to make themselves obscenely stronger, the undead didn't even need to bother. The laws of physics, already rather strained on Discworld at large, tended to get completely thrown out the window where they were concerned. You could find an obese, lazy, sick, arthritic, out-of-shape, vampire, and they could tie an iron bar in a knot with their bare hands. You tried to stay the hell away from the athletes. And while it wasn't normally quite as pronounced for werewolves, a Bad Hair Day could pronounce it ten times as clearly. 

"What'll it be?" the owner inquired of them. "The usual?"   
"Large coffee," Angua agreed, "but only one shake of salt."   
The owner nodded, giving the salt-shaker the aforementioned single dash of salt before handing it to her. Then he put on some elbow-length gloves, picked up a large pair of blacksmith tongs, and made Detritus' drink.   
"One hydrochloric acid, medium strength," he informed the troll. "One lava or two?"   
"Jus' one."   
"Coming right up... here you go."   
Paying for their drinks, they took them and continued on their way.   
"I've been cutting back on my salt intake lately," Angua was saying. Apparently most women went nuts over chocolate. She'd never quite understood the appeal, but she had her own little vice in the form of salt. It was probably the wolf half of her. "Carrot says that too much is bad for you, although I don't know if that applies to werewolves."   
Detritus nodded understandingly. "Trolls dat have too much salt got to stay outta da rain or dey loose weight. And Ruby, she say s'good I only have sulphur oc-ca-shun-ally."   
"So how are you and her getting along lately?"   
"S'good. But we not in a hurry. Lotsa trolls dese days, dey gettin' metamorphed real young, and den dey fragmentin' in a couple o' years."   
"Good for you both," Angua approved, once she had interpreted the statement.   
"You and Carrot happy?" the troll returned. Most trolls weren't given to small talk that didn't involve a slug in the jaw, but Detritus had managed to learn the basics so far.   
"Oh, definitely," she assured him. 

And all things considered, she _was_ happy.   
The world had been a little different since the business in Uberwald. When Shlitzen the bogeyman had given his traditional haunting over what her family back home thought of her, she'd just given the sort of smile normally found on her canine half, and replied that she'd _talked_ with them recently. The news from Uberwald had arrived later on that day, and Shlitzen had very quickly found someone else to haunt. Indeed, she had found herself with a little more respect by the Undead community at large, because even the Undead have a sense for politics.   
And the city of Ankh-Morpork wasn't quite as alien as it once had been, Angua was finding. Wolves liked territory that they could call their own. Or was it humans who did? Regardless, it went both ways with her, and it was rather surprising to realize that she was actually starting to treat Ankh-Morpork as her own territory.   
"We were thinking of going on a short vacation sometime soon," she continued, "provided we can manage to get the time off. I think it would do Carrot some good to spend some time in a new environment."   
Besides, she had a hunch that he might actually be beginning to run out of new people to meet in Ankh-Morpork, and Angua knew that Carrot loved meeting new people. She loved _watching_ him meet new people, especially the part where the new person tried to wrap their minds around the idea of someone like Carrot. It wasn't easy, but in her opinion, it was definitely worth the effort.   
"How come der people still act all quiet?" Detritus wanted to know. "I dint even bring my weapon today."   
"I can't imagine," Angua replied, stifling a laugh. "You'd think they'd realize that you weren't as dangerous without the Piecemaker, wouldn't you? I mean, all you can do is _hit_ them."   
"Yeah. Mebe I try for a few days an dey figure it out. It kinda boring when der criminals not fightin' back."   
"Well, maybe you'll get lucky on the next stakeout."   
"S'good. I wanna talk with der bastard who been running all dat slab(3)." 

It had been during a surprise cold spell last month, when Detritus had suddenly managed to piece together various bits of information regarding the recent increase in the Ankh-Morpork slab market. Following up on his brief brainstorm had been enough to piece together a few possibilities. 

"You want to talk with them, huh?"   
"Yeah. Wid sign language." 

One of those leads had lead to Angua and Detritus staking out Clean Street the previous night. And they had spotted someone passing through on a horse with a large pack attached. And then Angua had run astray of an assassin on night run, which had quickly degenerated into a fight. Before it was over, Angua had been left with a cut down her arm, and the assassin had been left unconscious with a black face(4).   
And the original target was long gone, and there had already been reports today of a new batch of slab being sold on the streets. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they'd just missed a golden opportunity. Detritus had taken it particularly hard, and it would undoubtedly go even harder on whoever they caught next. 

"Don't worry. Next time, I'll chase them across the entire city if I have to." 

*****   
(1) Only once they arrive. If they already have one, they usually stay away from Ankh-Morpork.   
(2) Ankh-Morpork Postal Service, est. Very Recently.   
(3) Think LSD for Trolls. Unlike the vast majority of races, Trolls are silicon-based lifeforms. But the illegal narcotics industry would never let a minor detail like that stop them for long.   
(4) Similar to a black eye, but considerably more painful.   


* * *

"So you're from Uberwald, are you?"   
"That's right! I left about two years ago to make my fortune and establish my independence in this male-dominated world!"   
Lucy rolled her eyes. "Congratulations." 

They had spent the last few hours wandering the streets of Ankh-Morpork, and aside from the occasional leer or wolf-whistle, and frequent "No vacancies", they hadn't found anything to fix their housing problem. Lucy was beginning to despair whether they ever would. At the moment, she couldn't even blame her companion's one-person anti-male propaganda blitz. There were simply NO places to live in this city.   
The area they were presently passing through was looking no more promising. And the air was actually managing to smell worse, somehow. And the houses were rapidly deteriorating to the point where the word 'house' no longer applied. Some didn't even warrant the word 'hut'.   
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the road was labelled 'Sunny Meadow Avenue'. 

"It's been hard going," Irie was admitting, "but I just _know_ that I'll be successful in Ankh-Morpork! Especially with _you_ as a role model! I can't _possibly_ fail!"   
Oh gods. "Um, look here-"   
Insert: One interruption. More specifically, the house they were currently passing had its front door opened by someone's face. Hard.   
"Hey!" Irie yelled, looking between the thoroughly-beaten figure lying on the ground and the two individuals who had done the throwing. "What do you think you're doing?!?"   
One of the two throwers politely raised his hat. "Our apologies, ladies, we didn't see you there. This is just guild business, sorry for the disturbance."   
"You can't just-"   
"Darn right you can't!" another voice growled, stomping over to the impromptu meeting. "That man's a tenant of mine. Who's going to pay his rent, I might ask?"   
One of the throwers held up a badge. "Thieves Guild Enforcement, mister. This man's been thieving without a license for quite some time now. Sorry, but this man won't be paying any more rent. Besides, yesterday was the first of the month. You've got your rent, and you don't even have to let him use the place for the rest of the month. Good deal for you, right?"   
The landlord nodded grudgingly. "Yeah, but it's the principle of thing, y'know? I don't want it said that I'm harbouring unlicenced thieves. Bad for my rep, y'know."   
One of the thieves gave the house a look that clearly indicated that the rep had nowhere to go but up. Looking back at the landlord, "Look, we won't tell if you won't, okay? We don't like it said that people can get away with unlicenced thieving."   
"Well... okay. But I'm keeping the rent he paid!"   
"We have a deal then."   
Irie had finally found her voice. "What do you _men_ think you're DOING?"   
The thieves stared at her. "We're just eliminating this unlicenced thief. No law against that, is there?"   
"It's absolutely despicable what you're doing-_Oof!!!_"   
The last part came from Lucy accidentally driving her elbow into Irie's stomach as she stepped forward. "So that man isn't going to need the house anymore?" she inquired.   
The thieves shook their heads as they each took a hold of the presently senseless third thief. "_Definitely_ not."   
"Why?" the landlord asked. "You interested?"   
"What's the rent?" 

* * *

In many universes, there is a commodity known as 'waterfront property'. It is highly sought after, to the point where people do ridiculous things to obtain it, up to and including putting their firstborn as a down-payment. While opinions vary, many people believe that it's the closeness to the water that gives them their value, hence the term 'waterfront property'.   
This is not the case in Ankh-Morpork.   
In Ankh-Morpork, a city built on either side of the great river Ankh, there naturally exists waterfront property. And owing to the adaptation of the river as a liquid landfill, a graveyard, a septic system, and general dumping ground for things that couldn't even be disguised in a sausage, the term 'river' is a term used quite loosely. Children growing up in Ankh-Morpork often amuse themselves by skipping stones on it to see how many sparks they can make. Cement shoes have to be specially made, or else the person tends to float. It moves downhill, but so do glaciers.   
In other words, waterfront property is generally only considered preferable to the river itself, and not by much. Any fragile materials in nearby houses are in constant danger of being bio-degraded during the hotter times of the year. 

"We paid too much."   
"But we're only paying 75 pence a month each. Besides, it's a waterfront location."   
"We _still_ paid too much."   
"I think it has character."   
Lucy looked wearily around the inside of the structure that passed for a house in this part of Ankh-Morpork. It _definitely_ had character, she agreed. It was the kind of character that suggested the house may have been sentient at some point in time, and hadn't been properly embalmed after dying.   
Still, it could have been worse, she admitted. Slightly, anyhow. She could have been paying the full rental price for this waterfront location by herself. She and Irie had somehow, through unspoken agreement, decided to share the location and the rent. And no matter how annoying she might turn out to be, for someone born in Lancre and largely raised in a schoolhouse, 75 pence was still 75 pence was money that would probably be useful down the road(1). 

"Wow!!!" Irie was exclaiming from another room. "My luggage is all here!"   
Lucy decided that the world had a sense of humour, and it was a really sick one. "Yes, it sure was nice of that thief to carry your luggage all the way here, wasn't it?"   
"I still think that was a little mean of you to let them drag him away like that."   
Yes, it was, Lucy admitted. But at least she would be feeling remorseful under a roof. And it wasn't as though her objecting would have mattered. "I've heard they do things differently around here. Besides, he stole _your_ luggage, remember? And do you really want to still be looking for somewhere to live?"   
"Oh. Right. And I guess that _man_ deserved it for trying to take advantage of me!"   
"Sure. Whatever works for you."   
The house had three rooms, it was quickly determined. There was actually a fourth room, but its outer walls were in such bad shape that they mistook it for a back porch. The first room was also the main one, and it apparently served the purpose of a living room, a dining room, and kitchen and a stable. The second was a bedroom, and possessed a single bed and a dresser, with a glass-less mirror hung on the wall. The third was combination of a bathroom and, if the still-hanging boxer shorts were any indication, a laundry room.   
Lucy dragged her finger across the counter, managed to scratch the layer of dust. "We _definitely_ paid too much."   
Irie re-entered the main room, still wearing her permanent expression of optimism. "It's a little bit cluttered, but I'm sure we can fix it all up in no time at all! I think the bed's big enough for both of us. Do you snore?"   
"I do _not_ snore."   
"That's good. Do you think this place is un-witchy enough for you?"   
Lucy raised an eyebrow at that comment, possibly half-surprised that Irie had actually listened to what she had said earlier. She gave the room another glance, just for the look of it. Back in Lancre, a witch wouldn't have been caught _dead_(2) in a place like this. Within days, the entire village would have been overcome with an overwhelming sense of desire and civic responsbility to help a poor woman get her house into working order, eventually leaving the witch with the Lancre equivalent of the Taj Mahal.   
Yes, this place was about as un-witchy as it was possible to get. And no witch would have ever consented to sharing their house with someone, nevermind a bed. To say nothing of the presence of the river Ankh in the backyard. And hadn't she been admitting that desperate measures were needed?   
"It's great," Lucy decided, a small smile managing to find its way onto her face. "It's absolutely perfect."   
"We should try and decorate it a little bit."   
"Sure. But we can worry it tomorrow. I just want to get some sleep now."   
"Just let me change the sheets. That man didn't take very good care of his bedclothes."   
Lucy finally entered the bedroom for herself. "_Yes_, change the sheets. Maybe we should burn them too."   
"Don't be silly! We can use them for something else. Waste not, want not, my father always told me."   
Had she possessed more energy, Lucy would have pointed that Lucy's father probably counted as a male. As it was, she just nodded wearily in agreement. "Well, throw it on the back porch, okay? I'll sleep better knowing it's not _here_." 

*****   
(1) Contrary to popular belief, the kingdom of Lancre does not operate on a cashless economy. Rather, it operates on an almost-cashless economy, which is not the same thing. Cashless economies simply overcharge in terms of material goods, while in an almost-cashless economy, a tiny bit of money is all there is.   
(2) One of the benefits of being a witch is knowing in advance when you're going to die, which ensures that you don't get _caught_ dead anywhere at all. 

* * *

  


* * *

Morning came early for Sam Vimes. Not because of any Imp Alarm, or by Willikins the butler, or even little Sam starting up a crying spree. It came early because Sam Vimes' body always had a sense for when it was a good time to be awake. And after two decades doing the Night Watch, his body had become trained to work a long time between sleeping periods. It eventually caught up to him, of course, but he was fairly good at putting it off until a semi-convenient time.   
So when he woke up with a distinct absence of sun in his face, he instinctively didn't climb out of bed. Rather, he rolled out from under the blankets, easing himself down to the floor before quietly getting to his feet. A glance back to the two-thirds of the bed still occupied indicated that he hadn't woken Sybil, which had been the entire point. His wife needed her rest, what caring for the baby and all. Now to figure out why his body thought he should be awake...   
He washed and shaved as he always did, albeit as quietly as possible. Heading downstairs, he grabbed an apple in the kitchen and began to eat it as he made his way through the Ramkin estate, aiming for the front door. And anyone who thought that it was a simple task had never been in the Ramkin estate.   
Now to figure out why he'd gotten up so early. There weren't any meetings to attend, there weren't any criminals needing to be interrogated, the paperwork could go hang for awhile... He exited the front door and almost walked into a huge bundle of roses.   
He staggered backward, trying to get his bearings. "What the-"   
The smiling face peering around the flowers belonged to Angua. "Good morning, Mister Vimes."   
"Sergeant?"   
"Ah, you're awake," Carrot greeted, peering _over_ the roses with little difficulty. He was holding a package in one hand. "Angua didn't believe me, but I told her that you'd _never_ forget your anniversary!"   
_Oh bugger_.   
"But you've been terribly busy lately," Carrot continued, "so we thought we'd just save you the trouble of trying to find a gift and some flowers. Really, I keep telling Angua that she needs to have more faith in people."   
Vimes risked a glance towards Angua.   
"I guess you're right, Carrot," she agreed, wearing a giant shit-eating grin that would have warranted disciplinary action in any other situation. "Mister Vimes would have _never_ forgotten about something as important as his anniversary."   
"Um... of course not," Vimes rallied desperately. "But thank-you very much, captain, sergeant. It's been awful busy lately, what with... um, paperwork and all."   
"Funny you should mention that..." Angua agreed, pushing something towards him. "We happened to grab a few pieces of paperwork on the way over..."   
Vimes rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself. Two of his officers might be making a fool of him, even if only one was actually trying, but there _were_ limits. "Fancy that. Let's see... we have something that looks _suspiciously_ like a wage bill..."   
Carrot was one of those individuals with a natural immunity to sarcasm. "Does it? I didn't see Angua grab the paper, but that's quite a coincidence, sir."   
"And this other one... a vacation request for... Captain Carrot and Sergeant Angua... and I see that there's no date written in yet."   
"They haven't decided quite yet," Angua agreed, her facial expression unchanged.   
"But I'm sure that when they do, the dates filled in will be quite reasonable," Carrot assured him honestly.   
Oh gods, Vimes realized. Now two of his officers were blackmailing him into signing a blank cheque for a vacation request. Well, not _blackmailing_ him per se, but he knew that he'd have a hard time ignoring the guilt level if he didn't put his signature down. This was probably setting a bad precedent, he knew, even as he signed both pieces of paper.   
It was very considerate of Carrot to conveniently have a pen for him to use.   
"Have a happy anniversary, Commander," the captain bid him.   
Vimes watched them continue on their way, even as he now held flowers and a gift, unable to keep from smiling. Smiling - at least the pleasant and non-malicious way - wasn't something that came naturally to him. But he was definitely managing it for the moment. Watchman, _real_ watchmen, did their best to look out for each other. Even off-duty, it seemed.   
Maybe the Patrician was right, he reflected idly. There had been a pruning, and he was left with the good branches now. Not that he'd doubted that previously, but it seemed to make more sense now, somehow.   
He'd have to try and make sure the remaining branches were cared for. 

* * *

It was eight o'clock in the morning when Lucy found herself arriving at Treacle Mine Road, at the specified corner. Irie was still sleeping back at their 'house', which Lucy presently envied. Irie slept like someone who had more than half a bed to sleep on, and had spent most of the night either lashing out with random limbs, or rolling off the side of the bed completely and loudly waking up and climbing back in.   
Unsurprisingly, Lucy hadn't slept for much of last night. They were definitely going to invest in a second bed today. She didn't know where the money would come from, but she would find it. Or else sleep on the floor.   
At any rate, a job was a job. So she had gotten herself out of bed and washed up and gotten dressed and made use of some food left by the house's previous owner. Then she had headed over to the location specified by her prospective employer - here. 

There was a covered wagon parked in one of the corners, with a blank signboard posted across it. Setting out a semi-clean piece of cloth across the counter, the employer looked to be hard at work setting it up.   
"Mr. Dibbler?" she inquired politely.   
"You can't prove it!" he immediately protested, before turning around and seeing her. "Oh, I mean, good to see you... Miss Tockley, wasn't it? I'm almost set up here, hold this end of the cloth will you? Rush Hours(1) is going to be starting in a little bit."   
Obeying, Lucy held the cloth up against the booth, while he pounded a few rusty nails through it into the booth, making for a marginally more presentable setting.   
"There we go," he approved. "Now..."   
He gave her a brief up-and-down glance, and nodded approvingly. "Good, good, that's what I like to see. All presentable-like and such."   
Lucy nodded neutrally. She'd picked out a selection of clothing that seemed presentable, but not overdone, which seemed quite easy in some parts of Ankh-Morpork.   
"Anyhow, you can me Dibbler, or Mr. Dibbler, a couple other people in the city do too. So what I want you to do is sell stuff to people."   
"What sort of... stuff?"   
"Medi-ca-shuns and herbs and such," he announced proudly. "I'm thinkin' that there's a lot of people in this city who's bodies aren't quite up to par, if you follow me. So I'm gonna beat the rush and start selling them now!"   
Lucy looked suspicious. "Medicines?"   
"That's right!" Dibbler abruptly lowered his voice. "Well, I _say_ medicines... but what I mean is the batch of unsold fruits and vegetables and suchlike that I've got in the trailer here. But I figured out how it all works!"   
"You want me to sell fruits and vegetables and call them medicine?"   
"_Shh!!!_ But that's right. That's what all the doctors in the city do, and the stuff cures the folks because the poor buggers believe it will. The only difference being, of course, they charge outrageous prices for it all. I'm gonna beat 'em at their game, and only charge _sort of_ outrageous prices."   
Lucy actually gaped. "You want me to sell old produce to people for criminal amounts of money, and tell them it's _medicine_?"   
"Only half-criminal, but you've got the idea," Dibbler approved. "I can see you'll do fine at this."   
She'd heard stories about Ankh-Morpork, Lucy admitted. And there was the whole business surrounding the 'house'. And it was a long enough walk from there to here for her to see that goodness, honesty, and charity were worth their weight in river water. But even still... she'd just been _hired_ as a con-artist.   
"See, I heard they do this sort of thing over in the Ramtops," Dibbler was saying. "They got these old ladies in black who give out herbs and they cure the person because the sucker believes it! So I'm getting into this before those ladies come down here."   
Lucy almost opened her mouth to tell Dibbler what an idiot he was. Yes, it was true that witches in the Ramtops gave out herbs for all types of ailments. Or in the case of Nanny Ogg, a swig of whatever sort of fruit-alcohol was in season. Or in the case of Granny Weatherwax, sugar-water with some dye in it.   
The thing was, it wasn't the trick that people thought it was. The gullible people believed that the medication was the real thing, and it cured them. The smarter people saw through that business, and fell for the _real_ trick. 

"So just ask them what their trouble is - everybody's got _some_ sort of trouble. Then give 'em something and tell them that it'll cure it. It's a good job if you give it some fancy-shmancy name too..." 

Because the reality was that a witch could make a cure out of whatever she wanted. If a witch wanted some sugar-water to cure a bad back, _it would_. There were stories about how Nana Prudence made a kid eat cow dung to cure a snakebite(2). Occasionally, a witch would explain how occasionally eating fresh fruit was necessary to keep the 'sore throat cure' working, and how the 'coughing cure' wasn't compatible with cigar-smoking, and so forth. A smart person would hear about it and think they'd figured out the witch to be a fraud.   
She'd been that way once, Lucy knew. She'd learned the hard way, that a witch's cow-dung cure worked better and lasted far longer than the sparkly-magical kind. And the strongest witches didn't bother with trivial magics like fortune-telling and shooting fire, because they dealt with the tougher problems, such as human nature and stupidity. 

"...so it's best if you tell 'em that it came from a long way off. That way they believe it better, and if it don't work, they just blame it on _foreigners_, instead of someone else, such as you..." 

In Lancre, Dibbler would have been hung by his neck, assuming the villagers didn't decide to hang him by some other parts entirely. People who sold false cures were handled very directly and efficiently, because keeping one around was akin to an insult to the local witch, and _no one_ wanted an unhappy witch around.   
And now _she_ was being hired to sell false cures to the unsuspecting, ailing, citizens of this city. And to gouge money off them in return. It was absolutely unbelievable. It was disgusting. It was...   
...perfect.   
It was so perfectly un-witchy, it was practically _anti-witch_. 

"...I gots this atlas here if you need some suggestions for places," Dibbler was rambling, "So, d'you think you're up for it, Miss Tockley?"   
Lucy fixed him with a smile. It wasn't a very nice smile. "Mr. Dibbler?"   
He leaned back slightly as he took in her expression. "Yes?"   
"I took three terms of geography." 

*****   
(1) Apparently, in some other places, Rush Hour only lasts an hour.   
(2) It worked, of course. And the kid never got bitten by a snake again. Neither did anyone else who heard about the cure.   


* * *

  
end chapter 2 


	3. Chapter 3

Valley of the Wind Productions presents...   
Odd One Out   
A Discworld fanfiction by Intrasonic 

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

"Come an' getcher cures!"   
It was almost depressing.   
"Great prices!   
It was inconceivable, even.   
"Whatever the problem, I've got yer cure!"   
But the fact remained that Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler hadn't made a single sale all morning. Aside from the two people who approached for a sausage to use in a practical joke, that is. Despite that, the spirit of the enterprising, unsuccessful businessman burned relentlessly within him, and he continued to shout his spiel to the world at the corner of Treacle Mine Road.   
"Bargain prices! Get 'em while they're here! Limited supply!"   
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Who wouldn't want to pay money for a cure they thought would actually work? Were people really _that_ cynical?   
Glancing a hundred yards away, Dibbler could see that his other idea didn't seem to be panning out either. It had sounded like a good idea to hire someone else to help out as well. And that Miss Tockley had seemed to like a godsend. Rather pretty, a good head on her shoulders, coupled with a fairly evident desire to do well at the job. Between the two of them, they could cover twice as much area. It didn't hurt that she had agreed to work for only a minimal commission.   
Unfortunately, she didn't seem to be doing any better, he noted. He couldn't make out any details from his vantage point, but he reckoned that it was easy enough to guess. People would walk up to her, demonstrating the typical Ankh-Morporkian curiosity over anything new. But they would only talk for a brief moment, before leaving again.   
Perhaps that Tockley girl, despite her enthusiasm, was simply too inexperienced as a businessperson. She hadn't even appeared to bother with the atlas he'd provided her. Concession-stand-fright, he imagined. Too overwhelmed by the whole experience, no doubt.   
Oh well. It looked like he'd be back to selling sausages within a few days. 

"And you've had this... case of 'freckles' for how many years?"   
"Almost my entire life, missus."   
Lucy pursed her lips thoughtfully, looking at the young man carefully, as though analysing each and every one of his freckles.   
"You should have come sooner," she finally decided. "It's not easy to get rid of them after such a long time."   
The man swallowed. "But I only heard about this place _today_, missus!"   
"Then you should listen better," she retorted. "But you're in luck. I've got something that might be able to help you with your problem."   
"Really?!?"   
Reaching behind her concession stand, complete with the 'Kyures for EvryThing' sign painted above it, Lucy grabbed a peach and placed it front of the person.   
He looked at it carefully. "That looks like a-"   
"a _Cornucopia Regalia_ Seed," Lucy interrupted firmly. "Grown only in the far reaches of the Djelibeybi lands."   
Stare. "Really? All the way from... umm, there?"   
"It wasn't easy," she agreed truthfully. She'd almost decided on a banana. "This is the unprepared form, so you'll have to take it home with you. When you get home, you need to scrape off the outer coating and burn it. As for the seed inside, smash it into little bits with a hammer, then eat them immediately afterwards."   
He silently memorized the instructions. "And that'll cure my freckles?"   
"It'll help," she agreed. It would help teach the idiot to stop trying to cure his freckles, that was for certain. "But that's what you get for leaving it for so long. And that's one dollar."   
He nodded, giving her a one-dollar piece and taking his peach. "Thanks, missus! I'll use it right away!"   
"Off you go," Lucy agreed, giving the man the universally practised 'Have a Nice Day (You Idiot)' smile.   
It seemed pretty easy so far, she decided. It had been a little slow through Rush Hours this morning, but for the few people who had approached her, she had dredged through her knowledge of geography and foreign languages and sold a few cures for hangovers and an incontinent horse. But business had slowly but surely begun to pick since then. By this time, she could expect at least one customer every five minutes, and the pace seemed to steadily increasing. Obviously the word about this new business was finally getting around the area.   
The trick, she was quickly learning, was to display complete and absolute confidence. It didn't matter what the confidence was in, because the customer couldn't tell. And Lucy presently had confidence in spades. And it wasn't in her 'cures', like the customers probably thought.   
What she _really_ had confidence in was the fact that she was going to have some _serious_ reckoning to do in the afterlife for this business. She must have defrauded almost a hundred people by now, and it was barely lunchtime. Young, old, male, female, dirty, _really_ dirty, working, unemployed... she would listen to their problems, take their money, give a few ridiculous lines involving funny words and far-away places, then give them some week-old produce. And they'd never suspect a thing.   
Throughout it all, she was almost certain she could feel the dying screams of that little part of her that was trying to be a witch. She was doing a horrible thing, it vehemently insisted, and she was doing it repeatedly. She was supposed to be a _real_ witch, who actually sold real cures and didn't toy with people's desperate hopes and con them out of their hard-earned money. By this time, displaying her karma level would probably need a minus sign in front of it.   
Fortunately, at this point, she didn't care anymore. For the last year, she'd tried every other approach to avoid being a witch, and they hadn't worked. If _not_ being witch required her to be a sadistic con-artist...   
Lucy smiled, and waited for the next vict-er, customer. 

* * *

"Heeelp!"   
"Stay back or she gets it!"   
Vimes arrived at the scene at a full dash. "Report!"   
He ducked behind a barrel as a crossbow bolt didn't skewer him.   
"*ahem*," he spat, carefully getting to his feet in a manner that didn't make him a good target. "What's to report, Reg?"   
Reg Shoe was a watchman who had the distinction of being the Watch's first zombie, since the goodness of Carrot's heart had been faster than the meanness of Vimes' own heart. Surprisingly enough, Vimes had gradually learned, he was also one of the most level-headed and patient individuals he'd ever met, mortal or not. Probably on account of not having to worry about dying. To be sure, Reg would occasionally go to pieces in a more literal sense in a crisis, but at least he could be stitched together again afterwards. "He's taken a hostage, Mister Vimes. And he's got another loaded crossbow."   
"I see," Vimes agreed. "Any other officers nearby?"   
"Detritus is in position for a sniping shot, and Angua's ready to make the rush afterwards."   
"Good. How is the hostage?"   
"Seems okay, sir. Hi-I mean, _her_ voice sounds like it's getting a little sore from screaming out in distress, but that's it."   
"No worries, then. How is Carrot?"   
Reg cautiously peered around the corner of his own barrel. Zombies couldn't technically be killed by a crossbow shot, unless the arrow head was on fire, but armour repairs costed just as much. Twenty-five yards away, behind the cover of a loam wall, he could see the captain holding up one finger. "One more minute, he says."   
"Good enough. We'll wait." 

* * *

"...and my back's been aching something dreadful I tell you..."   
Lucy nodded patiently.   
"...and I don't hear so good out of my left ear..."   
Yes, she could almost _see_ the barbeques now, she mused inwardly. When faced with an elderly old man with more bodily complications than a Twister convention, the normal response was a sympathetic nod and murmer, followed by a (possibly polite) departure.   
"Well, I imagine that I can do something for you," she agreed, the smile never leaving her face. She was going to take this frail, helpless, old man to the cleaners!   
"What's that?" he inquired.   
"I'VE GOT SOMETHING FOR THAT," she repeated, aiming at his right ear.   
"You do?" he inquired, his face lighting up in an expression of blessed innocence.   
A cluster of grapes found their way to the counter. "There are Angel's Teardrops, from the _En al Sams la Laisa_ region. Take one per day..." 

* * *

Vimes gave one last look at his officers on the scene, then briefly glanced over at the hostage and the hostage-taker. It was now or never...   
"_Go._"   
The ensuing events happened quickly. Much quicker than you're reading them right now.   
A heavy *thunk* was heard as Detritus' crossbow accelerated a six-foot bolt to gate-crushing speeds in a blink of an eye.   
The hostage-taker's still-loaded (and much smaller) crossbow was torn out of his hands by the blunt-ended bolt(1), and carried into the store behind him.   
The hostage, suddenly displaying surprising agility for a Damsel-in-Distress, squirmed out of the man's grip, and scampered away like a mouse who's seen the maid walk into the room with a cricket mallet.   
The windows in the store behind the man, plus their frames, were violently blown outwards in a spray of waxed paper and wood, almost as though the crossbow bolt had hit something that you wouldn't normally expect at 'Stone's Spices and Herbs'.   
A large blur of ash-grey fur on four legs darted into the aftermath of the explosion, too fast to be seen unless you were looking for it.   
The hostage-taker, undoubtedly deciding that his desperate last stand had failed miserably, tried to scramble to his feet to initiate an escape. Whereupon a fist the size of his head grabbed his shirt and lifted him off the ground and held him too far away to bring his feet into use.   
"Ah, Mr. Finly, isn't it?" Carrot greeted cheerfully, his free hand holding up a small book.   
"*Urk*"   
"Charge him, Carrot," Vimes ordered, giving a brief glance to the already convening spectators. "And read him his rights in a loud, clear voice. _All_ of them."   
"Yes sir," the captain agreed. "I looked up as many charges as possible, just like you ordered."   
"Good."   
"Now, Mr. Finly, you stand charged with unlicensed theft, unlicensed pilferage, fleeing the scene of the crime, fleeing the scene of the crime after being asked not to, fleeing the scene of the crime after being ordered not to, assault, attempted assault, almost-successful assault, carrying a loaded weapon, carrying more than one loaded weapon, carrying two loaded weapons, firing a loaded weapon in a public area, discharging a weapon with intent to cause harm..." (2)   
Reg Shoe was already dealing with the owner of the shop. Namely, he was leading the coughing man out of the building. "Right this way, don't worry, you'll be okay. Just a nasty little accident, it seems - nobodyelseinsidecommander - just take a minute to get your bearings..."   
Vimes nodded approvingly, heading into the building at a brisk pace. As expected, it was a veritable disaster area, not unlike Nobby's room. Shattered furniture, broken lamps, scattered papers... almost as though Detritus' shot had managed to hit something very explosive. The smell of burning chemicals was also quite prominent.   
"Interesting," he muttered under his breath.   
Further on back, there was a large array of shattered glasswork, the larger pieces bearing resemblance to the type of equipment normally used by alchemists, as opposed to the simpler, cast iron or clay vessels that a herbalist would normally use.   
"How _dare_ you just waltz into my property like this!"   
Vimes briefly made a face, but erased it as he turned to face the owner of the property. Apparently the owner of the shop had recovered enough to shrug off Reg's talking and rush back into the building.   
"Mr. Stone, isn't it?" Vimes inquired politely.   
"I demand you leave my property this instant!" the man bellowed.   
"There has been a disturbance in the peace, and I'm just making sure the pieces aren't disturbed. And we saw some Watch property go in here. I don't suppose you've seen a six-foot, 300 pound arrow, by any chance?"   
"You caused that explosion!"   
Vimes put on an apologetic expression. "It was just a normal siege arrow, you know. We just happened to have a hostage situation here, we're _very_ sorry that your shop happened to get in the way."   
Apparently his act needed some serious work, because Mr. Stone didn't seem to buy it for a minute. "Why you... this is private property!!!"   
Vimes slowly exhaled, casually continuing to inspect the scene in the process. "I don't know... it doesn't seem very private to _me_, what with this giant hole in the wall and all..."   
"I _demand_ compensation!"   
Vimes abruptly brightened in a fashion that indicated that Mr. Stone had just said the Wrong Thing. "But of course! The Watch will reimburse you for everything you've lost here. We have the highest regard for the hard-working businessman, and we'll do everything to make sure we're still on good terms after this... unfortunate accident."   
Mr. Stone nodded stiffly. "I'll send you the bill, you can be certain. Now why don't you all-"   
Vimes cut him off, still radiating cheerfulness. "There's a law about this kind of accidental damage, you know. _Both_ parties must examine the surroundings to assess the damage. So why don't you and I just go back and take a look together?"   
It was amazing how fast the storekeeper moved to block Vimes' path. "N-now look here! You can't just go waltzing on my property like this!"   
Vimes' facial expression was too innocent that be innocent. "But Mr. Stone, we can't send you any compensation until we've surveyed the damage. And according to our captain Carrot, there's a law dating back to 1467 which states that representatives from _both_ parties must survey the damage. Funny little law, but there you have it. So if you're not going to let me go look everything over with you..."   
Several other watchman were approaching now, to say nothing of the slowly encroaching passer-byers, a fact which Mr. Stone registered with no small amount of dismay. "Um... we'll just call it an accident. No hard feelings, no need for you to stick around. In fact, I _insist_ that you leave right now, because I don't want you to work too hard..."   
"Oh, it's no trouble," Vimes assured him, making a motion to walk around the man.   
Which was also blocked. "Out!"   
Behind Mr. Stone, a four-footed blur rushed out of the back of the store, now appearing to be carrying something in its mouth...   
"Well, if you insist," Vimes agreed, reluctantly heading out the now-larger doorway. "But I don't want it said that I have no respect for the hard-working businessman in our lovely city... Are you _sure_ that-"   
"OUT!!!" 

*****   
(1) While it's true that siege weapons are inaccurate, that's because they're normally fired at objects over a mile away. Over shorter distances, they don't usually have time to become inaccurate.   
(2) The Ankh-Morpork legal system, on account of 99% of the population barely giving a damn about it, tended to have a lot of redundant laws.   


* * *

Lunchtime was a godsend.   
It wasn't that Lucy had difficulty standing in one place all morning, because this wasn't the first job she'd worked with that sort of description.   
The customer service wasn't an issue either, because the politeness factor of the customers seemed to have been _rising_ all morning. Apparently cures (or at least, what people _thought_ were cures) were in high demand in Ankh-Morpork. And as Mr. Dibbler had said, no one else had seriously tried to provide it yet.   
It mainly the air. It had a hint of corrosiveness normally associated with battery acid and a penetrative stench normally found in a fertilizer factory(1). It treated air fresheners like _hors d'oeuvres_, and given a few hours, could probably neutralize bleach.   
Lucy strongly suspected it was already doing neutralizing something in her sinuses, because she had found herself unable to smell the rotten cucumber she'd given someone as a cure for their rheumatism. She could still smell the oranges and lemons, but there now seemed to be a range of scents that simply failed to register to her sense of smell.   
All in all, it was a fairly rough way to not be a witch. But she was certain it was working - after all, the only way she could possibly be any worse would be to become a mass murderer on the side. She'd hold off on that option for the time being. 

"Alright, you can break for lunch, Miss Tockley," Dibbler informed her as he approached her stand. He looked a little weary himself. "Business is somethin' nasty today, I say."   
"You mean, this was a quiet day?"   
"With these kind of sales? Worst I've ever had in some time, let me tell you."   
Lucy glanced down at her supply of produce. "You'd better find some more fruits and vegetables, then. Because I don't think I can make it through the afternoon."   
_That_ got a strange look from Dibbler, but the evidence was undeniable. Lucy's supply of produce was almost completely gone. "You been eatin' them?"   
She turned slightly green. "Ah, no. You'd have to pay me before I would, actually."   
"Then... you've been giving them away for free?"   
"No, I sold them, just like you told me to."   
Dibbler mulled over the statement for a minute. He'd seen a lot of people coming over to her stall, then walking away shortly afterwards, but even still... "You mean, they gave you money for the stuff?"   
Lucy grabbed the money-bin and handed it over to him. After a moment's effort, she was forced to use her other hands to keep from dropping it. "You didn't say how much to charge for the fruit, but this what I managed to bring in..."   
Dibbler opened the top of the bin and promptly choked. The bin had originally been designed to hold two gallons of whitewash. It was presently holding _almost_ two gallons of coinage. And there were a disturbing number of one and two-dollar coins mixed throughout...   
By dint of considerable effort, he pried his eyes off the wealth to look at Lucy. "They... _gave_ you all this money?"   
She shrugged. "Well, some of the things they wanted cured sounded quite serious. I should think a cure for a broken arm was worth at least three dollars. And it was a good apple."   
There were few moments of intense silence as Dibbler's eyes darted between the pail of money and Lucy, apparently scavenging the depths of the universe for some conceivable connection.   
A few more moments passed in the same manner.   
"Would you mind if I went and got something to eat?" Lucy finally inquired.   
No reply.   
"Mr. Dibbler?"   
He finally waved at her in an offhand manner that didn't require him to stop looking at the container of money. "Oh, yeah. You can help yourself to some of my sausages onna bun."   
Dibbler had brought a tray over with him, with a small pile of sausage-like objects inside bun-like objects, alongside small containers filled with liquids that looked vaguely ketchup-like and mustard-like. "Ah... thanks."   
She hesitantly reached down, and was surprised to find Dibbler's reedy fingers suddenly clamped around her wrist, preventing it from getting any closer to the 'food'.   
"On second though," he informed her, "you're not allowed to have those. Not that there's anything _wrong_ with them, o' course. One hundred percent pig products in 'em, y'know. Here's two dollars, go buy yourself somethin' to eat. And stay away from Jim's Café, you wouldn't believe the food that crook tries to sell people. I won't have any employees of _mine_ getting poisoned."   
"Ooookay." Lucy edged away from her boss, who was actually beginning to drool as he continued to stare at the pot of money. Everyone knew that Ankh-Morporkians worshipped the almighty dollar(2), but she'd always put that down as a figure of speech.   
Dibbler wasn't entirely aware of her departure, but his mind was a moderately keen instrument where the topic on money was concerned. And right now, a small corner of it had managed to make the connection between Lucy and the pail of money in front of him. More importantly, it had managed to make that connection _before_ she had eaten one of his famous/notorious sausages inna bun. He didn't pretend to understand _how_ she had just fleeced people out of so much money, but only an idiot would poison a goose that laid golden eggs(3).   
A commotion from the other side of the stand managed to get his attention. There was now an 'Owt 2 luNch' sign hung across Lucy's stand, but it didn't seem to be working.   
People were lining up. 

*****   
(1) A/N: If you haven't been in one, mere words can't begin to describe it.   
(2) Although they would also worship the moderately-mighty squid, rhinu, and occasionally, the rather wimpy half-dong.   
(3) And a really smart person begins to wonder about the prospects of starting a breeding program. But in this case, we won't carry the analogy too far.   


* * *

"Look, I shouldn't have to give you a reason."   
"That's speciesism, that is!"   
Sergeant Colon sighed. There were occasionally times when he yearned for the simpler days of the Watch, even if it would mean a pay cut. "Look, constable, I'm as reasonable as the next bloke around here. But we don't allow those kind of books around here. Besides, you're under-age to be having it."   
Constable Axegrinder, your through-and-through Dwarf, made an even more disgruntled face. "But I'm seventy years old!"   
"Right. And you Dwarves aren't supposed to have that stuff 'til you're at least one hundred. So quit whining and take your punishment like a Dwarf."   
Commander Vimes entered the front room of the Watch at a brisk pace, several other watchmen trailing behind him at a similar speed. "What's going on?"   
Colon held out a magazine to the commander. "Found this in the constable's locker during inspections this morning, Mister Vimes. A copy of one of them wossnames, e-rot-tick mag'zines."   
"An _art_ book," the constable protested.   
Vimes took the publication and glanced it over. True enough, it was a copy of Playdwarf, a new publication that had taken to appearing on the top shelves of grocery stores everywhere. He gave the front cover a look and glared at the constable. "I don't think I have to remind you what the Watch's policy is on this kind of stuff, Axegrinder."   
Excuses had a funny habit of evaporating in the face of the Commander's stare. The constable looked away and muttered something.   
"I didn't quite _hear_ you."   
"...don't get caught."   
Vimes nodded curtly. "_Exactly_. This morning's inspection was posted three days in advance. That's plenty of time for anyone. Even Detritus can hide his hammer in that length of time. So why, constable, is there is a magazine - with many pictures of shaven and topless dwarves in it - in your locker?"   
"...forgot."   
"Well, maybe being docked today's pay will help you _remember_ not to forget next time. And if you're really smart, you'll keep this sort of trash at home, and make sure any 'artwork' you keep around here features only dwarves _with_ their helmets and beards on."   
"Yessir."   
That business concluded, Vimes returned his attention to more important matters. "Alright, our little mission was successful, now we've got to take advantage of it. Carrot, finish up with reading Mr. Finly his rights, then get out on patrol. Cheery, take that package that Angua didn't recover from Mr. Stone, especially not while Reg and I were distracting him, I want to know   
what it is. Nobby, get back on traffic duty until supper hour, and take that stupid Damsel in Distress costume off. For anybody I didn't mention, business as usual. Keep your eyes and ears open regarding this Slab business. That's all, look busy."   
"And what will you be doing, sir?" Carrot inquired. It would have been a rather snide remark by anyone else, but Carrot was Carrot was another matter entirely.   
Vimes scowled. "The same thing I always do after these kind of operations."   
"Er... paperwork?" Carrot hazarded, the slightest hint of disbelief in his voice.   
"Commander Vimes?"   
Both watchmen promptly turned to face the individual who had quietly entered the Watch house without knocking.   
"Ah, Drumknott," Vimes greeted, an expression of false cheerfulness written across his face. "I was expecting you five minutes ago."   
The facial expression on the Patrician's clerk didn't change. "Incidently, his Lordship wishes me to inform you that you are five minutes late for your meeting with him."   
"Imagine _that_. Decided to have a meeting with me four minutes ago, did he?"   
"As you say." 

* * *

Half an hour later, Lucy returned from a relatively tolerable lunch consisting of a fish sandwich(1) and some tea with herbs in it. It had been a little pricy, but that seemed to be the price you paid for edibility in this city. There had been a mugging across the street from where she had sat, but no one else seemed to think much of it, so she did her best to ignore it too. She   
certainly didn't want to stand out in this city or anything.   
She would have enjoyed the break more, were it not for the annoying little voice in the back of her head that had been nagging at her the entire time. It kept insisting that she pay attention to various things, such as Dibbler's stupefied expression, coupled with the influx of people coming to buy 'cures', coupled with their almost ridiculous willingness to believe whatever she told them, coupled with the slowly increasing traffic...   
...Lucy vehemently ignored it all. It was _witches_ who noticed things and understood how they all related to each other, she knew. Thus, she didn't _want_ to notice them, and certainly didn't want to _understand_ them. Maybe spending the afternoon hawking snake oil to suckers would teach the voice to shut up. If not, there was always tomorrow... 

There was a large crowd occupying the street up ahead, she noted. It hadn't taken long for her to realize that most Ankh-Morporkian's possessed an innate ability to converge upon the scene of anything especially unusual or strange. Apparently something fitting that description was up ahead...   
...wait a minute.   
Once again, the annoying little voice in the back of her head spoke up, telling her to observe the location of the crowd, coupled with the fact that they were in some semblance of a line, coupled with the fact that Dibbler was rushing towards her right now...   
"Miss Tockley!" he was yelling. Merchants usually didn't make very good sprinters, but he was making a commendable effort at the moment.   
Lucy couldn't help it. Her jaw dropped. And it wasn't due to the sight of Dibbler sprinting.   
"You've got to get back to work!" he insisted. "They're all wanting to buy stuff from you!"   
She continued to stare at the crowd.   
"They won't listen to me! So I told 'em you were gonna be back soon..."   
This was impossible.   
A note of fear had crept into Dibbler's voice. A fairly experienced judge where crowds were concerned, he could see that this bunch was the type that was prone to lynching anyone who failed to deliver on what they'd said. "Miss Tockley? I know it's a big crowd..."   
_This_ many people were coming to buy the false cures?   
"Look, if it's about the commission, we can nego-shi-ate a little..."   
Once again, the stupid voice was speaking up, repeating its earlier demands. The explanation for this madness was _obvious_, it insisted.   
"Tell you what, I'll bump your commission to twenty percent!"   
Just take a metaphorical step back, the voice suggested seductively, and look at all the facts that the rest of the idiots here are ignoring. Then put them all together to get the answer. That's what a witch did, and she was a witch, so that's what she was supposed to do.   
"Miss Tockley? How 'bout _thirty_ percent? That's awful good, y'know..."   
Like _hell_ she would. Even as her fists clenched outwardly, she inwardly made an obscene gesture towards the voice.   
Dibbler mistook the outward body language. "Look, _forty_ percent commission! And that's cuttin' me own throat!"   
Lucy's eyes snapped open. She'd defraud every person in this entire _city_ before she'd become a witch! "Mr. Dibbler?"   
He swallowed, liking the look on her face even less than the one she'd given him earlier on this morning. The earlier one had been suggestive of strength and a spirit of determination and such. _This_ was the kind of expression possessed by a person who ended a hostage situation by deliberately shooting the hostages. "Y-yes?"   
"Get the medicine." 

*****   
(1) Fish was generally one of the safer meats in Ankh-Morpork, because after a certain number of years, all the fish capable of surviving in the river were thoroughly inedible. So any eating fish had arrive from well outside the city.   


* * *

"Ah, Drumknott, Vimes," Vetinari greeted, upon hearing the door to his office open. 

It wasn't that the Patrician _scared_ him, Vimes would have insisted. At least, not in the same way that a rabid, charging tiger did. It was more akin to the nervousness that a ninth-grade, prepubescent boy feels when the gym teacher is looking for a volunteer to demonstrate wrestling techniques(1). Except that with Vetinari, the man controlled your fate, but rather then holding it in the palm of his hands, he just set it to the side and ignored it, until he had some use for it. 

Vimes, much preferring to have his fate ignored, straightened to attention. "You wanted to see me, sir?" 

But deep down, when one's train of thought had nothing better to do, it was hard not to honestly wonder how the hell someone like Havelock Vetinari came into existence. Vetinari Senior hadn't been particularly renowned in any respect while he was alive, aside from the typical noble attributes of having lots of money and no regard for poor people. 

"Indeed. Incidentally, what is the word on the vicious barbarian invaders who attacked our city yesterday?" 

Vimes, particularly since the changing fortunes of the Watch, had been in contact with the Patrician more than most people, and he _still_ wondered what had made the Patrician the way he was. He'd talked with Lady Margolotta, a noblewoman in Uberwald who was rich(2), powerful, and centuries old. She was also a vampire, which meant that it was genetically ingrained within her to trust only herself, look down on most people, and manouevre into a position to look down on everyone else in due time(3). And _she'd_ actually sounded somewhat deferential in regards to the man. That was, in Vimes' book, more than a little disturbing. 

"They were seen on Fifth Street this morning, sir, selling their weapons for food. Someone nicked all of theirs last night, apparently.(4)" 

Vimes had heard stories of people who were tortured for years on end, forced to survive in conditions that Ankh-Morpork restaurant inspectors would cringe at, and eventually turned into human-looking animals who stopped operating on reason and started working on raw instinct.   
And it seemed to him that, if such a process could be applied in the _exact opposite_ direction, the end result would be a person who _might_ conceivably last a few rounds against the Patrician. Maybe. 

"Excellent," Vetinari approved. "We can always use a few more good, honest, hardworking citizens in our fair city."   
Okay, so the Patrician scared him, Vimes silently admitted. "Yes sir."   
"Now, what was it I wished to talk to you about...? Ah yes, the matter of the hostage situation earlier today."   
"About thirty minutes ago, sir."   
"And as I understand it, there was a hostage situation, followed by an unfortunate mishap at a small herb and spice shop?"   
"Yes sir."   
"I understand that the hostage-taker was apprehended? Is the hostage is safe?"   
"Yes sir."   
"Did you happen to get her name?"   
Vimes' decided not to try play silly buggers on that particular point. "It was our Corporal Nobbs in disguise."   
"Ah, of course. Halting the pursuit by giving the criminal someone to take hostage. You are a resourceful individual at times, Commander." Vetinari steepled his hands together, as though formulating his next sentence. "So I am given to understand that... this criminal threatened the hostage in front of the herb and spice shop?"   
"Yes sir."   
"And a stray shot from your sergeant Detritus struck the shop with rather destructive results?"   
"He was disarming the criminal, sir. Not literally, this time, of course. And it was just a normal bolt. Nothing explosive about it at all, sir."   
"Indeed. You could hardly have been expected to know that there were explosive spices inside the shop, could you?"   
"No sir."   
"Indeed. So you and the rest of your officers inspected the premises afterwards?"   
_He knows_, Vimes realized. _Only thirty minutes ago, and the man bloody knows what I was doing_. "Only briefly, sir. Mr. Stone insisted that it was private property and that he didn't want our help in cleaning up. He even agreed to waive the damage expenses. There was a large crowd of bystanders who can vouch for all that, sir."   
"Is that so? Quite a generous man, it seems. But I expect that your officers showed the foresight to take some... debris... from the scene? Purely to ensure that they pose no long-term harm to Mr. Stone, of course?"   
_Dammit._ "Possibly sir."   
"Quite so. A commendable show of initiative, Commander. But to be quite blunt, in the future you will make an effort to avoid such destructive hostage situations."   
Translation: Cute trick, but it's the River for you if you try it again. "Yes sir."   
"Excellent. Now, don't let me keep you from your duties. Oh, and a happy anniversary to you and the Duchess."   
Vimes twitched. "Thank-you, sir."   
It was only after Vimes had left the room that the Patrician permitted himself a small smile. "Dear me. I imagine that the man forgot about it. Although it would hardly surprise me if some of his officers thought to remind him this year. He _has_ been a little absent-minded as of late."   
"As you say, sir," Drumknott agreed.   
"But I have the utmost confidence that the problem will soon be remedied."   
"Sir?"   
Were it possible to look both innocent and evil at the same time, the Patrician would have been managing it. "Oh, the poor man lost his organizer imp back during that inconvenient business with Klatch, so I took the liberty of informing his wife about it. And I hear the newer models are more capable then ever."   
Drumknott looked impassively at his pad of paper. "I'm sure he will appreciate it, sir."   
"Indeed. Now, I imagine that there is some other news you wished to bring to my attention?"   
After the terribly inconvenient business with the old secretary, Vetinari had been quick to locate a new person for the job. Drumknott possessed all the necessary qualities in spades, and came with an extra bonus - a complete and utter lack of political ambition(5). He simply arranged for all the information to be presented before the Patrician, who then did the considerably harder work of actually understanding it all. "Yes sir. There is a disturbance at the corner of Treacle Mine Road."   
"I see. That would be where our city's unofficial mascot resides? I believe that it's been several weeks since he's tried to sell something besides his sausages."   
"He has taken to selling fake medicines to the passer-byers."   
Vetinari looked briefly thoughtful before replying. "Excellent. I wish the man well at his new endeavour, however long it happens to last."   
Drumknott produced a piece of paper and gave it to the Patrician. "It is a little different this time, sir."   
There was a moment of silence. Then, "I _see_." 

*****   
(1) And the gym teacher thinks that Olympic wrestling is for wimps, and that professional wrestling is real.   
(2) It takes the Undead to _really_ appreciate the wonders of compound interest.   
(3) _Completely_ unlike Humans, of course.   
(4) The fact that Ankh-Morpork didn't possess an army was entirely a matter of perspective.   
(5) Similar to a sports fan who is given front-row seat to all the games, but is smart enough to not try and join the team.   


* * *

"This should take care of your toothache."   
"Really? What is it?"   
Lucy gave a scowl that indicated that her imagination for names was beginning to tire slightly. "It's _excremento del pollo_(1) extract," she informed him. "From Su Asno. Wash it down with a few glasses of water. One dollar."   
"Wow! Thanks a lot!" Forking his money over, the customer left with a small bag of salt. 

Several paces back, Dibbler was watching her the way he would have watched a someone repeatedly prod a bear in its unmentionables during mating season. That is, he had a feeling that something very bad was about to happen, but the sight was so unbelievable that it couldn't actually be _real_.   
You were supposed to _sell_ things to people. You were supposed to talk past their skepticism, convince them of your sincerity, and leave them briefly thinking that they'd gotten a good deal. After which point, the 'no refunds or exchanges' clause came into effect. The bottom line was, it was _supposed_ to actually take some effort on the seller's part.   
To be fair, Miss Tockley was displaying an impressive talent for thinking up foreign names, because he was pretty sure that some of those places weren't in any atlas. And she had the whole 'confidence' thing down to a T. But he was beginning to suspect that it didn't even matter. The people simply lined up, told her about their problem, took their produce, and left their money behind. It was almost as bad as that "Moving Pictures" business, which Dibbler was _really_ trying to forget about. It boded poorly, he was certain. Or in this particular case, it boded richly, but deadly.   
The sound of the next customer's voice was enough to trigger some recognition. 

The next request was enough to make Lucy pause. "...you're looking for a _what_?"   
The man - at least, she was pretty sure it was a man - looked a little sheepish. "A sex'al magnet, miss. You know, the kind of thing that makes ladies... you know."   
Oh gods. Lucy wasn't sure if she was _that_ good of a liar. What _this_ individual needed, she was certain, was radical invasive surgery. "I _see_. That sort of thing is dangerous, you know."   
"I'm desperate, miss."   
Lucy reached down for a grapefruit, and came up empty. Glancing downwards, she made a face. She'd actually run out of produce, even after Dibbler had given her all the supplies from his own stand, to say nothing of raiding several nearby fruit sellers. How many 'cures' had she given out, anyway?   
Giving the man a small smile, "Wait here a minute. I need to go prepare it." 

Dibbler met her halfway. "What's wrong?"   
"I'm out of cures!" she hissed.   
"Well, I can't get any more around here! Besides, that's Corporal Nobbs of The Watch you're serving. We don't want to do anything _too_ crooked, if you catch my drift..."   
"Just give me something! Anything!"   
"Look, all I've got left are the sausages-_Ohno_Miss Tockley, I _really_ don't think-" 

*****   
(1) A/N: One word - Babelfish.   


* * *

Vimes stared at the object in front of him, as though willing it to disappear. It didn't, but not from lack of effort on Vimes' part.   
Carrot was in the office as well, looking rather impressed. "Incredible, sir. That's the Centennial Edition - the best model available. Did your wife get it for your anniversary?"   
"_Yes._" Vimes look down at the small box-like object, engraved with 'Imp Organizer CE'.   
"Aren't you going to try it out, sir? I'm sure The Paperwork can wait."   
"I guess I can't put it off forever."   
"Not for lack of trying, sir."   
"I was referring to this organizer imp, Carrot."   
"Oh. Sorry sir."   
Vimes opened the box.   
"Bingely bing-urk!"   
Vimes was smiling nastily, his sword having magically appeared at the imp's neck. One trip through organizational hell had been enough for him. _This_ time was going to be different, if he had anything to say about it. "Your first instruction is to stop making that stupid sound whenever you're opened."   
Even creatures as unimaginative as imps have a sense of self-preservation. "Not a problem, insert name here> here. My audio responses are fully programmable."   
Vimes blinked in surprise. "You mean, I can actually say 'don't say bingely-bingely-beep', and you'll listen to me?"   
"Of course, insert name here>. I am the latest and most powerful model, designed for the ultimate in user convenience."   
Vimes put his sword away. "Well, that's an improvement. What can you do?"   
"I come with a full range of programs to assist you in organizing your daily tasks."   
"What kind of programs?"   
"Well, I can tell you the time, I can tell you the date, and I can keep track of your appointments."   
"But my old one could do all that stuff too!"   
"But I do it in a much more sophisticated manner, insert name here>."   
Vimes exhaled slowly. "Can you do paperwork?"   
"I am programmed to recognize all forms of handwriting and read it out loud."   
"_Really?_" Vimes grabbed a piece of paper off the mountain and held it in front of the imp. "Read this to me."   
"Certainly, insert name here>." The imp abruptly gave a groan, and hiccuped, then didn't do anything else.   
"What's wrong?" Vimes asked after a moment.   
"I've performed an illegal operation."   
"Really? Then it's good thing you're at The Watch," Carrot noted helpfully.   
Vimes could feel a headache coming on. He gave the Imp a look that any sentient being would have recognized as Unsafe To Be Around. "_So what?_"   
"So you have to close the lid, then open it again."   
"_Why?_"   
"Because that will let me start over and try reading it again."   
"Why not just try reading it _now_?"   
"Because I've performed an illegal operat-" *click*   
After a moment, Carrot spoke up. "You're supposed to open it up again, sir."   
Vimes gave him a Look, tossing the piece of paper back onto The Paperwork, which promptly re-absorbed it. "I'll worry about it another time. I'm going to go see if Cheery's found anything yet." 

* * *

Lucy arrived home in a manner that suggested there were invisible slabs of iron tied around her feet. Had someone told her that, she probably would have wholehearted believed them. Saying that she was tired was like saying that Ankh-Morpork was a large town. She felt like a 40 gallon barrel of water after 80 gallons of water had been poured from it.   
She would have considered the entire day to be a dream, but the large sack of money over her shoulder proved otherwise. Not only had she sold all the produce Mr. Dibbler had gathered, but he had actually bought the entire stocks of the nearby vendors as well. And then she had sold his entire stock of sausages. Then she had sold all the buns. She had started selling the condiments, but by this time, Dibbler had begun _begging_ her to go home for the rest of the day, saying that he'd tell the crowd to come around the next day. And he'd go find some more supplies.   
The man had looked rather spooked, truth be told. As a matter of fact, she suspected that Mr. Dibbler might have accidentally given her more than her forty percent commission, but the man was already looking like the slightest nudge would put him clear over the edge. So she had taken her share and headed back towards Sunny Meadow Avenue.   
She had stopped briefly at a small furniture shop on the way back, looking for a second bed. Despite the fact that she was clearly carrying a big bag full of clicking metal objects (i.e. money), and could possibly even buy the entire shop, the shopkeeper had instantly recognized her as 'Miss Tockley', and gave her the bed of her choice for half the asking price. And he was going to deliver it to where she lived for free. It was the least he could do, he had insisted. His son had earlier received a cure for his chronic near-sightedness.   
Lucy vaguely remembered selling a few prunes for two dollars to someone who had demonstrated trouble even reading the sign over her stand. The annoying little voice in her head had tried telling her to pay attention to something, but it had sounded even tireder than she was. Definitely proof that her approach was working, she had decided. She might as well keep up the effort and take advantage of this stupid man who wanted to sell her a bed for half-price. 

Regardless, Lucy was now at home. Or perhaps more accurately, at hut. It still smelled as foul as ever, she was certain, but standing all day in the main streets of Ankh-Morpork had burned out most of her sense of bad smells.   
The bag of money was presently threatening to collapse the table, and her own weight was threatening to collapse the chair she was sitting in. Incidentally, neither was in remotely good shape, and it would probably be a good idea to invest in some structurally-sound furniture in the near-future. Using ill-gotten gain for personal benefit sounded fairly un-witchy, she was sure.   
Another skeletal chair was presently serving as a clothing hanger, Lucy dully noted. More specifically, it was supporting a few articles of her own clothing. A pair of her nylons that had run, coupled with her night gown that sported a rip in a strategically embarrassing location. She had set them out as a reminder to find some replacements as soon as some money became available. But strangely enough...   
A close inspection of the night gown indicated a complete lack of any ripping. A closer inspection indicated the same thing. An _extremely_ close inspection revealed some microscopic stitching where the rip had been. Hardly daring to speculate, Lucy gave the nylons a similar inspection. And against all worldly logic and common sense, came up with similar results. Truth be told, the rips were completely invisible unless you were actually looking for them, and knew where they had been beforehand.   
Clearly someone with too much time on their hands had seen to both articles of clothing. The fact that Irie had been the only other person in the house was the source of a considerable amount of surprise. Apparently the obsessive little man-hater was possessed of some genuine talent... 

* * *

"Sorry, sir. I'm still waiting for the tests to finish."   
"No problem. Carry on, Corporal."   
That said, Vimes took his leave of Cheery's laboratory. Only once he was well past the 'Thanke ye lucky stars ye are note smoking' sign did he produce a cigar and light up. Certain lessons were learned _before_ the first time, because the first time was generally the last time as well. Fire and Cheery's laboratory fell into that broad category by a considerable margin. As far as Vimes was concerned, his wife's swamp dragon pens were dangerous enough.   
There seemed to be a discussion at the front desk. And it was loud enough to reach all the way up to the laboratory. Considering the time of day, Vimes was surprised to hear the racket. Usually all the criminals took a break for supper around now. Mind, earlier today he had assigned Sergeant Colon the task of pre-screening some job applicants...   
A groaning figure rushed past him.   
"Nobby?"   
"'sir."   
"What's wrong with you? You're groaning like you just ate one of Dibbler's sausages inna bun."   
"No, definitely not a sausage inna bun," Nobby gasped, clearly undergoing some discomfort in the gastronomical regions. "It was... _porco comprimido_, she said."   
There were some things that Vimes long ago decided that he was better off not knowing. This was probably one of them. "Well, it's your supper break you're using up."   
"Yessir..." Nobby disappeared around the corner, clearly en route to the privy at top speed.   
Vimes conveniently pushed any speculation out of his mind and continued to the front desk and whatever ruckus it presented stages. It wasn't uncommon to get some unusual applicants for the Watch at times... 

At the front desk, Sergeant Colon was presently attempting to screen an applicant. And so far, it wasn't going well. "Look, miss, I wasn't saying that-"   
"I'm _sure_ you'd like me to believe that, wouldn't you!?!"   
"Miss..." Colon glanced downwards at the application, least a mispronounced name be added to the long list of faults being attributed to him at the moment. "Miss Irie, look-"   
"Why don't you just _admit_ it, you self-serving, egotistical _man_!!! You feel belittled and inferior in the presence of someone with _talent_, and you're desperately trying to compensate for your own shortcomings!!!"   
The sergeant boggled in disbelief. "I... _am_?"   
Irie glared dangerously at him, or at least tried very hard to. The final result was somewhere between a stare and a scowl. "You just finished telling me that a job in the Watch wasn't a good place for a seamstress! It's _obvious_ what you're thinking!!!"   
Colon swallowed, trying _very_ hard to keep his mind on the task of interviewing this applicant. It wasn't as though he'd never had to deal with problem applicants before, because you got all kinds wanting to join the Watch. And he had techniques for handling all sorts of developments.   
Unfortunately, he was having difficulty getting past the pair of *ahem* developments that this applicant possessed. The fact that they were quite properly and decently concealed beneath her clothing held about as much water as insisting that an elephant covered by a large table cloth can be ignored. That is, throughout her devout and passionate spiel, complete with theatrics, the clothing was striving to indicate that certain regions were obeying gravity in a largely basketball-like fashion. The speech wasn't helping matters either.   
A distraction, Colon quickly decided. He grabbed a pen and began writing things down on the application form. Anything at all.   
"...and I'm an extremely _talented_ seamstress, I'll have you know!!!"   
Oh gods. She was trying to stare him down, which was failing miserably. But it involved leaning forwards, which wasn't. "I'm... sure you are, miss," he agreed in complete honesty, frantically scratching down a grocery list.(1)   
"My father taught me everything I know-"   
*SNAP*   
Colon hastily rummaged around for another pen, least his brain start hemorrhaging. "I... family business, was it?" he managed to gasp.   
"...and I've been learning since I was only three years old!!!" she continued relentlessly.   
*THUNK*   
From the doorway, Vimes sighed, noting that it was going to be a few minutes before Sergeant Colon returned to the real world. "Is there a problem here?" he inquired, slowly entering the room.   
She spun to face him. "Who are _you_?"   
One outlet of Vimes' ingrained cynicism towards the world was his belief that on the whole, the world wasn't a very original or dramatic place. So when someone claiming to be a seamstress showed up to join the Watch...   
"I'm Commander Vimes," he informed her. "Incidentally, I run this Watch. And _you_ are?"   
To her credit, unlike many other people who had faced down Vimes' glare, she didn't flinch. "Irie von Celeste."   
"Oh really? That sounds Uberwaldian. And your parents?"   
"Maria von Celeste and Igor." While said in an entirely un-noble manner, her tone of voice still indicated that neither individual was anyone she was the least bit ashamed of.   
There was no helping it. Vimes twitched. "_Igor_?"   
She frowned. "Not Igor, Igor."   
It wasn't just crimes that started making sense with a few crucial bits of information, Vimes reflected briefly. "Of course. He taught you everything, did he?"   
Irie actually looked a little embarrassed for a moment. "Ah... well, I haven't got as far as brains yet..."   
Vimes nodded slowly. "Igor?"   
"Yes sir?" Igor replied, suddenly present in the room. While Vimes had steadfastly refused to be a 'Master', on account of already having too many titles for his liking, the business of always appearing when called was something that Igor hadn't wanted to give up. Just because you were a modern Igor didn't mean that some of the old ways didn't have their merit.   
"This young woman's name is Irie von Celeste. Ring a bell with you?"   
Igor brightened as he saw her, apparently surprised enough to slip into the Igorian dialect for a moment. "Mith Irie! It's been ageth!"   
She smiled too. "Why are you in Ankh-Morpork, Igor? And you're still trying to use that funny accent!?"   
"I'th-I mean, _it's_ all part of being modern. Mister Vimes hired me three months ago when he was in Uberwald. He doesn't mind the accent."   
"Well, good for you. I know that Igor and Igor were saying that you'd never amount to much, but I just _knew_ you'd make a name for yourself! Oh, and Igor told me if I saw you to say hello."   
"It's nice to hear from them," Igor agreed. "Mister Vimes says I have to go easy on the piercings, but that's it. And I have a whole lab downstairs to work in. I miss the thunder and lightning back home, though."   
"It's definitely not the same out here," Irie agreed. "You can't get the ominous howling wolves either."   
"_Anyway_," Vimes continued, getting a grip back on reality, "now that we've done a background check on you, Miss Celeste... why don't we finish the interview business right now?"   
Irie instantly snapped back to focus on Vimes. "And what makes you think that I even _want_ to join such a _discriminating_ organization?!?"   
"Because you just finished applying, didn't you? And I think you'll find that the Watch is the most _undiscriminating_ organization in this entire city, actually. We hire Humans, Dwarves, Trolls, Gargoyles, Golems, Zombies, Werewolves, Igors, and a few other races that I can't remember off the top of my head that Carrot probably hired without me realizing it. And when they join, they all become _Watchmen_. Every single person in this building and on patrol is a Watchman, and I don't see any reason why you should get any preferential treatment."   
"Oh." _That_ was apparently a mindful for Irie, who's brows furrowed sharply. "I... guess that... makes sense..."   
Vimes smiled in his non-cheerful, you'll-probably-regret-this way. "Then I'm happy you agree, Lance-Constable Irie. You'd best go get yourself some supper. You can report for your first shift at six o'clock tonight." 

A short time later, Vimes was seated at his office desk, studiously ignoring The Paperwork, and deep in thought. Sometimes he had hunches, and time had taught him to pay some attention to them. Right now, he had a hunch that he probably wasn't going to find any good, normal watchmen. Employment in The Watch could offer a number of things, but nothing spectacular or unique that the Guilds in the city didn't. But perhaps more importantly, it frequently _didn't_ offer a swift kick in the arse to non-conformists. And the people who _really_ shone in The Watch so far were the people who stood to benefit from that absence.   
So with that in mind, Vimes supposed that it was quite possible that you could find a good watchman, dragging some abnormal baggage around. What you had to hope was that you could find one who could set the baggage aside long enough to be good watchman. If you found _those_ kind of people, you were all set.   
And if worst came to worst, he supposed, The Watch could probably do worse than a young lady capable of learning the Igorian brand of tailoring. Now he just had to find someone who could do the paperwork... 

*****   
(1) Mrs. Colon never quite received a satisfactory answer explaining why why 'melons' were on the list that week.   


* * *

It was rather seldom that Havelock Vetinari ventured outside of the Palace for any reason at all. It was something that required a minimum of intelligence, which was why he employed other people to do it for him. But every so often, generally during exceptional circumstances, he would order his carriage to be made ready, and would bestow a visit upon the city which he oversaw.   
Incidently, today was one of those days, and it was the corner of Treacle Mine Road that had the dubious privilege of having the carriage slow to a halt before it. The location was relatively empty at the moment, although the amount of debris scattered around suggested that it had experienced an inordinate level of traffic earlier on in the day.   
The Patrician lightly stepped down from the carriage, his silver-topped cane being put to the busy task of balancing out a weak-looking leg(A/N: left or right?). He was wearing some of his best clothing, which was to say that it was made of moderately glossy material, and wore a thin silver chain around his neck. To the casual observer, he looked like a live practice dummy for Thieves' Guild training.   
Fortunately, there weren't any casual observers nearby. And even if a person didn't actually recognize him as the ruler of Ankh-Morpork, they probably would have recognized him as 'someone to not try and pickpocket'. Because _somebody_(1) knew what had happened to the last person who had tried.   
Hobbling a short distance, the Patrician came to a halt before a figure huddled in front of a bucket. It was the kind of huddle that indicated that life, for that person, was presently near the 'tight-rope walker halfway across the waterfall who sees a hurricane approached' point.   
The figure didn't even look up to see who was casting the shadow. "G'way. Closed for the day. Open again tomorrow morning."   
"It is quite fortunate then," Vetinari noted, "that I did not come to purchase anything from you."   
The figure cautiously raised his head to see who had spoken.   
"And you would be the enterprising Mr. Dibbler, I believe?"   
It wasn't a question. Furthermore, Dibbler immediately recognized the person who was speaking to him as the person he theoretically paid taxes to each year. His eyes darted to each side frantically, the lack of immediate and endless excuses demonstrating his present state of mind and existence.   
"I understand you have started a new business?" Vetinari inquired rhetorically. "In the area of medicinal commerce? And are doing quite well, thus far?"   
"Couldn't help it," he stammered weakly. "The blokes just kept coming and coming and coming... bugger'd if I know why they were lining up."   
"Is that so? Perhaps I am in error, but I would imagine that such a situation would actually be _beneficial_ to most businesses? In the interests of being a successful businessman?"   
"Well, yeah, 'course I want t'be successful..."   
"Then what seems to be the problem?"   
Dibbler opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Because he didn't know. Today had been a dream come true, or at least it should have been. At this exact moment, he was richer than he'd ever been in his entire life. And tomorrow could very well update that fact by another significant margin.   
That was supposed to be a good _thing_. But whenever his memory played the day over... all those people practically breaking their arms to hand over their money, joyfully accepting whatever they were given in return... "S'not right," he managed weakly. "I dunno why. They believed whatever she told 'em."   
The Patrician adopted an expression of surprise, which no one who had met him would have believed for a moment. "Fascinating. So, in fact, it was not you who was doing the sales?"   
"Well, I hired the girl yesterday... I thought, pretty face, looks like she's got a good head on her shoulders... double my profits(2) and all..."   
"But of course. Who would this girl be?"   
"Miss Tockley. Lucy, I think her name was. Looked like she'd just come into town, if you get my meaning."   
"Indeed?" A hint of a suggestion of a whisper of interest crossed Vetinari's face. "I don't believe that I've ever heard of that name in our city before... but it sounds like she may have come from the Ramtops regions?"   
"Er... yeah, maybe," Dibbler agreed, who's experience with any region beyond his present one was quite limited. "She had that look about her, but I think they're usually... er, more plump, I hear. And she said she'd had some schooling. She sounded like it too."   
"Most interesting. Perhaps she learned a great deal about cures during her schooling? That could certainly serve to help sell your cures, correct? I imagine that a great of medicinal knowledge would be required to properly sell them."   
Dibbler winced. "Well... that is... I _say_ cures, y'know. But really..."   
"Ah, but of course. You are, in fact, selling _false_ cures to the people."   
"Er... I guess you could look at it that way..."   
The Patrician nodded understandingly. "Quite so. A morally bankrupt activity(3), but I would hardly be a fair ruler if I discriminated against criminal activity, correct? And I've always considered it to be a good thing for our citizens to learn about civilization in a first-hand manner."   
"Er... I thought so too."   
"And this young lady? She was, of course, aware that the cures were less than legitimate?"   
"Actually..." Dibbler's brows furrowed. "If I didn't know better... I'd almost say she was _happy_ that they were false. Strange, huh? But she sure was good at it..."   
"So I have heard. And I expect that many other people have heard as well. I imagine that there will be an even larger crowd appearing tomorrow to buy your cures." Vetinari abruptly seemed to remember something. "That is, your _false_ cures."   
Dibbler's expression was an interesting cross between greed and horror. "Er... I suppose so."   
"Then let me be the first to congratulate you on your recent success. I won't trouble you by asking the details of your success, but I _do_ so look forward to seeing them summarized on your tax return this year."   
"Er... right."   
"Then I won't keep you any longer, Mr. Dibbler. Good day."   
Dibbler only sighed as he watched the carriage head back towards the Palace. Somehow, despite the money, this business was going all wrong. 

*****   
(1) Not everybody, just _somebody_. No one knew exactly _who_ that person was, but everybody knew that there was somebody who knew. And it wasn't necessarily the person who had tried it. At least, not any more.   
(2) A true businessman never considers the possibility that there might not _be_ any for their latest venture.   
(3) Spoken by someone who had probably cancelled his own account a long time ago.   


* * *

Lucy wasn't sure how long she had sat at the table, staring at her ill-gotten bag of money. At some point, a new bed had been dropped off, but she had returned to the table immediately afterwards. It could have been ten minutes; it could have been ten hours. Regardless, she was eventually snapped out of her trance by the front door opening.   
Irie entered, looking rather distraught. Actually, she looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment.   
"Find a job?" Lucy asked. Actually, what she wanted to say was something like 'so how many times were you discriminated against today?', but she seemed to have already hit her nastiness quota for the day. You could only do bad things to so many people each day, she supposed.   
It was apparently a nasty question anyway. "_Waaaah!_ I told them I was a _seamstress_!"   
Lucy's mind wandered back to the expertly mended clothing. Oh gods... "You must have _really_ made an impression on everybody."   
Irie collapsed on another chair, burying her head in her arms. "I didn't know that seamstresses did _that_ around here! I only found out accidentally on the way home!!!"   
It was hard not to feel a little bit of pity for someone who had accidentally told half the city that they were a prostitute. "There, there... I'm sure everyone will forget by tomorrow," she lied.   
"I was doing so _well_," Irie continued mournfully. "I was standing up for myself, being independent, and making sure everyone knew full well that I wasn't going be a doormat, and... and I _ruined_ it all!"   
"It was just a bit of bad luck. Tomorrow, you can tell everyone that you're a... thread and needle specialist. I don't think I've seen many of those in this city." Lucy doubted that most people even bothered in the first place.   
"I wish I could be like _you_," Irie sighed. "I'll bet _you've_ never done anything like that before..."   
".. nothing quite like that, no."   
"I'll bet that whenever someone tried to belittle you, you didn't mess things up."   
"I just gave them the rotten fruit and charged them an extra dollar."   
Irie blinked. "You were selling fruit to people?"   
"That's right."   
"That doesn't sound very..." Irie briefly paused, trying to decide upon the right word. "...very liberating."   
"Actually, it was _very_ liberating. I was calling it medicine and charging them twenty times the normal price."   
"You..." Irie goggled at the person that she had just finished expressing devout admiration for. "You're working as a con-artist!?!"   
Lucy actually smiled. It felt _good_ to hear someone else say it. No one would _ever_ call a witch a con-artist. Not if they liked being healthy and human-shaped. "I didn't keep track, but I think I may have jilted almost a thousand people today! I sure made a lot of commission, anyway."   
"But that's... _bad_!"   
"Oh, I think I'm probably going to hell."   
"But that's... _really_ bad."   
Lucy giggled, unable to help herself. "But at least I won't be a witch when I'm there!"   
"Ah..." Irie briefly struggled to phrase her next comment diplomatically. "No offense, Lucy, but I think... you might be obsessing over this 'witch' business. It's not good to obsess over something so much."   
Lucy just _stared_ for a minute, but eventually let the matter drop. "Whatever. I'm dead tired from not being a witch all day, so I'm going to bed if you don't mind. By the way, we've got separate beds now, thanks to some idiot who sold me one for half price on my way home."   
Irie abruptly stood up. "Oh! I almost forgot! I made you something this morning!"   
"You did?"   
"Well, I was waiting for my breakfast to cook, and I was thinking how wonderful it was that I have someone like _you_ showing me how to be an independent and strong individual in the world, and... just let me go get it!"   
Lucy sighed quietly as the other girl rushed into the bedroom, once again desperately hoping that whatever Irie condition had, it wasn't contagious.   
Several seconds later, Irie rushed back into the room and shoved something into Lucy's hands. "Here you go!"   
"It's a..." Lucy examined the object for a moment. "...a night gown."   
"Well, the one you have now is sort of... plain," Irie pointed out, looking almost a little sheepish. "So I thought I'd make you a nicer one."   
It _was_ a nice gown, Lucy had to admit. It was the type that you normally window-shopped for, because it tended to show up with a price tag with your yearly income written on it. If you looked really closely, you could see that it had originated from some rather inelegant and possibly downright tacky patterns. But like an artist turning a mixture of earth and egg white into a portrait worth millions of dollars, they had been seamlessly sewn together to create something that could conservatively be called beautiful. Or more accurately, a work of art.   
Lucy tried not to smile, but was unsuccessful. Whatever else she wanted to say about Irie, her ability with a thread and needle was clearly not up for debate. And whatever she wanted to say about her view of the world, she _was_ a nice person at heart. Heading towards the bedroom, "I'm going to try it on."   
For the metaphorical icing on the cake, the gown was a perfect fit. And it was comfortable on a level that lacked any adequately descriptive-enough words. "This is... this is made entirely of silk!" she exclaimed, her tone of voice a complicated mixture of delight and disbelief.   
Coming back into the room, "_Where_ did you get the material for it?"   
"Is it... comfortable? The material looked alright before... and I can alter it if you want me to..."   
"Comfortable?" Lucy lightly stepped across the room, luxuriating in the feel of the material against her skin. "Irie, I could wear this for the rest of my life! And my afterlife, too!"   
"Really? That's a relief. I don't like wasting good material, and when I was straightening up the laundry room this morning, I wasn't sure what to do with all those boxer shorts hanging up...."   
Lucy's movement ground to a halt. "_Excuse me_?"   
"...But then I saw your night gown on the chair. I sewed it up, but then I decided that it'd be even better to just make you a new one...."   
"Boxer shorts?"   
"That's right. Oh, I have to get going now, because I'm a watchman now. Except that watchman isn't the same thing as _man_ of course, because everyone becomes one, no matter what they were before, and I think it's almost six o'clock now..."   
Lucy's teeth clenching together as she struggled against a newfound urge to boil the gown, and maybe herself for good measure. "I am... wearing a night gown... made from... _boxer shorts_?"   
Irie almost vanished out the door, but skidded to a halt and looked back. "Oh, Lucy, I almost forgot! I heard that someone started selling medicines today, just like you are! Except that this person's medicines actually work, so I guess they're real medicines. So you might have some competition pretty soon. But I just _know_ that you'll rise to the challenge and come out on top!!! But you should get some sleep now, because you're looking a little pale, okay? Bye!!!"   
A deafening silence echoed through the room, and Lucy's face slowly continued on its way towards a look popularly known as 'death warmed over'. Even the boxer shorts were briefly forgotten.   
_... selling medicines..._   
No.   
_...just started today..._   
Impossible.   
_...medicines actually work..._   
It couldn't be-   
The annoying little voice in her head that she'd spent all day trying to kill chose this moment to wake up and gave her a metaphorical kick in the arse. This proved to be enough to cause several mental tumblers to finally click into place.   
Lucy sprinted out the door. 

* * *

Corporal Nobbs knew something was wrong the minute he returned to the Watch house from dinner. The reason he knew this was because Commander Vimes was smiling at him.   
It wasn't that Vimes disliked Nobby. Far from it, rather.   
He and Nobby had been through the thick, thin, and everything else together. They had patrolled the bars and bridges and many other untravelled places together for years. How many times had they seen the other person running ahead of them, inspiring them to pick up their own pace? (1) How many times had Vimes looked the other way while Nobby permanently borrowed any valuables that happened to be upon any passed-out criminals? How many times had Nobby dragged Vimes' drunken, passed-out carcass back to the old Watch house? Nobby had seen Vimes become a nobleman, and Vimes had seen Nobby almost become a nobleman, and their opinions on much of the whole business had turned out to be almost identical.   
But that didn't mean Vimes was predisposed towards smiling at Nobby, or anyone else, for that matter. No, when Vimes smiled, it was frequently because the receiver of the smile was about to find themselves thrust into a really lousy situation. In the nicest possible way, Vimes often smiled when life gave him an opportunity to legally, legitimately, and politely be a general asshole to someone who was making his life inconvenient.   
"Ah, Corporal Nobbs," Vimes greeted cheerfully. "Feeling better now?"   
"Er, yessir." Nobby cringed. Vimes didn't call him 'Corporal' unless the situation was going to be _really_ bad. It was only five feet to the doorway...   
"I know you're supposed to be on traffic duty, but I assigned Constable Bloodyhugepickaxe to it today. I have a different assignment for you tonight."   
Worse and worse. "Um... really?"   
"That's right," Vimes confirmed, stepping aside to reveal someone behind him. "Say hello to our latest watchman, Lance-constable Irie von Celeste. She's coming from Uberwald, to The Watch, as a highly talented-"   
"Thread and Needle specialist," Irie interjected quickly, a faint redness appearing on her face for a moment.   
"-thread and needle specialist," Vimes agreed, his smile briefly widening.   
Nobby warily regarded the new watchman. He briefly noted that she was wearing a suit of armour that had received the full Sergeant Angua treatment, but didn't dwell on that fact for very long. He _knew_ how life was supposed to treat him, and any moment now, the ball was due to drop. "Er... hi?" he ventured cautiously.   
Even as she rivetted her gaze on him, Nobby could tell that he was being tested. He didn't know what for, but he knew that tended to fail most tests aside from the 'Genetic throwback quotient' test. So he'd probably failed already. Same old, same old.   
Vimes was speaking again. "Corporal Nobbs is one of our most experienced officers in the Watch, Constable Irie. Normally I'd just send you out, but you look like someone who can learn from the Watch's finest."   
Nobby quietly sighed in relief as he finally realized that his Commander's smile was actually directed towards the new person. Maybe this evening would be alright after all-   
"So you'll be showing her around the city, Nob-I mean, Corporal Nobbs."   
"Huh?"   
"She can't be a good watchman if she doesn't know our city," Vimes elaborated, "and I imagine you know this city better than almost anybody. So you can show her the ropes this evening, alright?"   
It wasn't a question, Nobby knew, even as the door to Vimes' office shut behind him. It _sounded_ like a question, but it was a demand. Well, there was no helping it. Nobby didn't like trainees, and hadn't trained one since Carrot had first joined up. And that had NOT gone well. This was going to be a _bad_ evening.   
"You're a Corporal?" Irie demanded.   
That was an easy question. "Yup."   
"And I suppose," she accused, "that you got there by ruthlessly stepping upon the heads of your fellow officers in a display of pathetic and simple-minded machismo?"   
Nobby briefly mulled over the question. "Er... I don't think so. There was only four or five of us in The Watch when I got the rank, really."   
Irie deflated, but quickly rallied. "Then I _suppose_ you think that a woman has no business in an organization like this, and they should be regulated to menial household chores and have no place in the modern workforce?"   
This one took longer to think over, but Nobby gave it an effort. "Well... I dunno. We don't have many woman-folk in The Watch. And I'm always getting stuck wearin' that old dress and letting the crooks take me hostage so's to slow 'em down."   
"You mean... you willingly wear a dress?"   
Nobby looked a little defensive. "Well, some poor sod's gotta do it sometimes, y'know. And that thing is bloody uncomfortable, let me tell you... 'Sides, never hurts to walk a mile in someone else's shoes, I always say(2)."   
A strange and complicated series of thoughts and emotions appeared to cross Irie's face, then faded into nothing. "Oh. Well... so you're showing me how to be a watchman? Um, I mean, Corporal?"   
Nobby cursed inwardly. Bugger if _he_ knew how to teach someone how to be a watchman. He wasn't entirely sure that he knew how himself. And Vimes was always saying that the rules were never the same each day...   
"Er... I'll... show you along the way," he desperately ad-libbed, gesturing towards the doorway. "S'not stuff you can just teach, see?"   
"I guess not."   
Nobby led her out of the Watch House, thoughts awhirl. The way he saw it, he didn't have a lot of options at the moment. He had to train a trainee, but didn't know how.   
"Okay," he began slowly, his mind formulating a plan of sorts. "Er, a watchman's gotta be able to learn things, see? So we're just gonna do a normal patrol down Short Street. You gotta watch and learn, and ask questions, right? You gotta be able to think for yerself in The Watch, understand?"   
Irie nodded obediently. "I'll do my best to be a good watchman and be a credit to liberated womankind everywhere!"   
"Er, right," Nobby agreed. He'd just... act normal. Do a normal patrol, answer any questions she had, and hope she picked up the rest by herself. Easy for him, anyway.   
Nobby suddenly found himself smiling. Maybe if he did a... _bad_ job, Vimes would get someone else to train her instead. 

*****   
(1) Because this meant that they were now closer to the pursuing criminals.   
(2) Nobby frequently _was_ walking in other people's shoes. It was up for debate whether he'd ever owned a pair of his own, actually.   


* * *

A short time later, the sound of iron-heeled shoes running up the hallway got Vimes' attention in his office. "Come in, Cheery," he invited, not bothering to wait for the knock.   
Throwing open the door, the dwarf came to a halt, hastily saluting. "I've got the results back, Commander."   
Vimes perked up. "And?"   
"You were right, sir. The package that Angua recovered has a lot of Slab in it. But it's also got about five other chemicals that are outlawed by the Alchemist's Guild."   
"You mean... they actually outlaw some chemicals?"   
"Yes sir." Cheery had worked at the aforementioned Guild before joining The Watch. "Some chemicals can be very dangerous."   
"Cheery, the Alchemist's Guild doesn't think that _nitroglycerin_ is dangerous."   
"No sir. But they think these chemicals are."   
That pretty much decided it. "So, Mr. Stone has slab in his herb and spice shop, does he? As well as other chemicals that even the Alchemist's Guild think are dangerous?"   
"There's too much to be an accident, sir."   
"_Good._ Where's Detritus? He'll be interested to know about this. And I don't feel like waiting until tomorrow morning to follow up on this lead."   
"He's in the canteen, I think."   
Vimes got to his feet. "Good job, Corporal. It's time to prod a little buttock." 

* * *

The first time that you entered the Mended Drum, it was because you were looking for either a drink or a fight. Every time afterwards, you came for the fighting, because there were plenty of other safer places to get a drink. For a good, spontaneous, no-holds-barred, anything-goes brawl, The Drum boasted a quality and intensity unrivalled by any other establishment, although the historical Hundred Weeks War between the nations of Klatch and Omnia might have placed a close second.   
Tonight, it was looking to be the same, and the regular patrons were already eyeing each other carefully. Getting knocked out or killed was something to be generally avoided, because it meant that you couldn't try to knock out or kill other people any longer. So you kept your weapon(s) in one hand/fist, and used the other to drink as much beer as possible before the fighting started. Many people said it was uncivilized, and they were absolutely right. Civilized people usually don't   
have the decency to get liquored up before they start fighting.   
*BANG*   
The door was abruptly thrown open with a flourish to make a theatre patron weep for joy.   
*THUD*   
The door, already in poor shape from a previous brawl, fell completely off its hinges.   
*Thump*thump*thump*THUMP*   
Through the pine doorway, a figure strode mightily into the bar.   
At this point, reality finally managed to re-assert itself, with all the splendour and elegance of a native Chinese food stand at an international pet show.   
To be exact, the Drum's poor lighting revealed that the figure was a young, unarmed, lady in a night gown and little else who couldn't have weighed more then ten-stone. The slightly crazed expression on her face suggested that she might not have been aware of that fact.   
"What the-"   
"EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT SOMETHING FROM ME TODAY, HANDS UP!!!" she yelled, her tone of voice carrying at least another forty-stone behind it.   
When a young lady walks into a seedy bar like the Drum, never mind her state of dress, and starts yelling orders to a room-full of drunken, heavily-armed, candidates for an anthropology exhibit, the outcome is virtually inevitable. The resulting script, especially the young lady's role, is unfriendly, indelicate, and tends to involve a lot of things that would make this story unsuitable for children.   
So the next scene was a _big_ surprise to everyone present, especially to the two-dozen people who found themselves slowly raising their hands in response to her demand.   
The young lady briefly counted the hands, then scowled angrily. The number was, to judge by her expression, unsatisfactory.   
Matching forwards until she was in the centre of the bar, which effectively surrounded her with the aforementioned evolutionary throwbacks, she gave the room a glare that carried the same weight as her voice had.   
In a much quieter voice, which nonetheless managed to clearly resonate through all the beer that had been quaffed by the listeners. "_Hands up... everyone who's cure_ didn't _work._"   
Silence. It was the kind of silence that not only lets you hear a pin drop, but its passage through the air beforehand. Even the bartender had stopped serving drinks by this point. No hands went up.   
She rotated slowly, eyeing each person individually, and evoking within them the feeling a dog gets when it knows it's somehow failing to follow its master's command. "I _said_, hands up everyone-"   
A meaty hand clapped down on her shoulder, forcefully interrupting her.   
Spinning around, she glared at the seven-foot man who was presently following the traditional script by giving her a lecherous grin. "Hey, pretty girl. How 'bout you an' me-"   
*THUNK*   
Slowly, the man toppled over backwards, an arrow wedged firmly in his left eye in a manner that a new eyeglass prescription probably wouldn't fix.   
"Didja see that?"   
"Unbelievable!"   
"Great shot! Right in the eye!"   
The bar turned to face the shooter, who was another classic example of a Drum patron. He was presently reloading his crossbow again, but had a smile plastered across his face.   
"No-Eyes Ned?"   
"I'll be buggered!"   
"But he couldn't hit a barn from the _inside_!"   
"He's so bad, gettin' drunk makes him shoot better!"   
The thug who went by the name of No-Eyes Ned gave a nasty laugh. "I gots myself a eyesight cure this afternoon. And that lady's dere is Miss Tockley, and she's der one who gave it t'me."   
The patrons of the Drum, even the ones who hadn't raised their hands in response to the first question, gave a chorus of impressed looks towards the nightgown-clad individual who was looking more and more disgruntled by the moment.   
"Bloody good cure, then."   
"Yeah, I gots a cure from her too."   
"I don't lisp anymore."   
"My broken arm's all better."   
Lucy rounded upon the person with the cured broken arm. "You can't be serious!" she snapped. "I remember you! You said your arm was broken in three places!"   
He cringed, but nodded. "Well, I _think_ so... Mebe four places?"   
"I sold you an APPLE!" Lucy yelled in frustration.   
"Weeell... maybe, okay. But it was a _special_ apple."   
"No, it was a plain, normal, discount surplus apple that was starting to rot! And apples don't cure broken arms!"   
The man's massive brow crinkled in thought. "Well... _this_ one did."   
"This can't have been the only apple you've ever eaten! Think back to the last one you ate!"   
"You gave it to me, remember? And it cured my broken arm!"   
Lucy's eyebrow twitched. "The one _before_ that!"   
"Well... I had one last month, I think."   
"See? And it _didn't_ cure your broken arm, did it? DID IT?!?"   
"Well..."   
Some occupants in the room began to ease towards the walls, which looks quite amusing when the only threatening thing is an unarmed young lady in a night gown. The interrogatee looked as though he wished her could join them. "Well..."   
"Well _WHAT_?!?"   
"No," the man admitted. "But my arm wasn't broken then, you know."   
A quiet chorus of nods and positive-sounded grunts circled the bar, acknowledging the depth of logic behind the statement.   
"Stands to reason."   
"Yup."   
"An apple can't cure a broken arm if the arm ain't broken."   
Lucy looked like she wanted to either scream very loudly or simply break down and cry. After several very long moments, she settled at a compromise which involved collapsing on a stool with her head resting on the bar.   
"I _hate_ my life," she muttered into the wood.   
The men exchanged a few wary glances.   
"S'okay, miss," one man offered kindly. "Yer prolly just a little tired. Can't be easy, makin' all dem cures. How 'bout ye let me buy ye a drink?"   
There next thirty seconds were surprisingly complicated, but Lucy's mind was spinning too much to actually listen to anything being said around her. It was finally beginning to dawn on her addled mind that she'd spent the past half hour chasing down random citizens of Ankh-Morpork who she'd sold cures to during the day. And no matter how ridiculous or incurable the ailment, she _still_ hadn't found a failed cure. The damn witch inside her had won again.   
It was also dawning on her that she'd done it while wearing scant but a nightgown.   
A light tap to the shoulder finally got her attention.   
"Miss Tockley, is it?" It was the bartender. "Did a lot of cures, did you?"   
Lucy followed his gesture along the length of the bar, her eyes coming about to stare at a large stomach. Looking upwards, they met up with the face of a man who was either smiling, scowling, or laughing at her. It was the kind of face that could technically be doing all three at once, because it had clearly been bludgeoned enough that no particular expression could be executed in its entirety. The mass of scars across the left side of his face had possibly been inflicted with a meat grinder, although a buffalo stampede was a definite possibility as well. She vaguely recalled selling an pneumonia cure to someone like him earlier during the day.   
There were about twenty individuals behind him, and they were all variations on the original themes. Some of the Trolls had moss still growing on them. The Dwarf in the line had an axe with a three-foot _wide_ blade. As they all realized that she was looking at them, some hurriedly put away their six-foot swords and fifty-pound iron clubs.   
Lucy stared back at the bartender in disbelief, her eyes asking the question that she couldn't quite put words to at the moment.   
"They want to buy you a drink," the bartender explained patiently.   
"A drink?"   
"Yeah. _All_ of them do."   
Her eyes dragged themselves back to the crowd. Some of them quickly tried to straighten up and smile.   
The bartender set a mug in front of her, filled to the top with a brownish substance. "Whatever's got you so down, Miss, a few mugs of this'll prolly scare it away."   
Lucy hesitantly wrapped her fingers around the upper-half of the mug's handle and tilted the mug to get a top-down look. After a few seconds, the substance caught up with the mug(1). She sighed sadly. "I should be so lucky."   
"Maybe, but they're free."   
What the hell. Lucy took a large swig of the beer and swallowed.   
The Mended Drum's idea of a good beer is one that doesn't waste space in the mug with bubbles. Or with more water than is absolutely necessary. Most of the alcohol doesn't even bother using the stomach as a pathway to the brain, because there's a shorter route through the bloodstream. It can also be used to grease axles and squeaky hinges, strip old paint, as well as seal roof tiles. The premium version can be drunk with a fork.   
Lucy's eyes rapidly crossed and uncrossed several times as the beer hit the back of her throat and some of it continued down into her stomach. The rest hit her brain in a fashion that caused a giddy smile to form on her face.   
The bartender sighed. "You okay, Miss?"   
"I... don' feel v'ry witchy..." she announced to the world in general.   
This statement was taken in stride by the rest of the bar. "Ain't seen many wimmen who drink the beer here."   
"Prolly got magic powers and such, y'know?"   
"Not a bloody chance."   
"I'm talkin' 'bout her, not the beer."   
"Oh. Well, maybe. What with dem cures and all."   
"I... don... feel witchy _at all_," Lucy elaborated slowly, the smile on her face slowly widening in a fashion impossible for sober people to duplicate. Her mind quickly absorbed this piece of information, and came to an impressive variety of conclusions.   
a) She didn't feel witchy; b) She'd just had a drink of the beer; c) Thus, it was the beer that was making her feel un-witchy; d) Therefore, this was obviously magical beer that possessed the innate power to neutralize a person's witchy-ness.(2)   
After several moments, she slammed the now-empty mug down on the counter and exhaled noisily. "Gonna drown all t'witchy-ness!" she decided aloud. "Gimme 'nuther!" (3)   
This was met with a chorus of approvals from the rest of the crowd, who quickly decided to start drowning their own witchy-ness, just in case.   
"Good on 'ya!"   
"'ave a nuther!"   
"Next one's on me!"   
"I get t'pay for the one after!"   
Two more mugs of the Drum's Finest later, a thought percolated to the top of Lucy's now thoroughly-addled senses. Setting down the mug, even as it was immediately topped up again, courtesy of the next barbarian in line, she glanced around. "S'ppose... 'ppos'd t'be singin'," she realized.   
The nearby drinkers nodded slowly, unable to deny the truth of the statement. Drinking wasn't the same without a good rousing song containing wizards and knobs or similar.   
"So what's the song gonna be?"   
"We did 'Ankh-Morpork, Ankh-Morpork' yesserday night."   
"Well, we did 'The Wizard's Staff' the night before that."   
"I knowa song," Lucy informed them, although her mug probably heard her best.   
"You're bloody good at all this, miss."   
"Why don't ya start? We'll all join in ASAP."   
"ASAP? What's that?"   
"Er... it's foreign fer 'As Soon As... um, Pissed'."   
"Well, don't go pullin' to much o' edjucated stuff around here, understand?"   
Lucy coughed, taking another drink to clear her throat. The room waited expectantly.   
"Thish... ish a shong..." Her brows furrowed briefly. "...S'bout a hedgehog." 

*****   
(1) Having a reputation to maintain, The Drum had stopped serving that cissy 'liquid beer' stuff years ago. Any company can claim their beer makes you manly - The Drum's has been known to actually lower one's voice by up to an octave.   
(2) Readers may have gathered that the person handling the logical reasoning is probably not playing with a full deck of cards anymore.   
(3) Actually she's probably well on her way to rolling coins and flipping dice.   


* * *

  
end chapter 3 


	4. Chapter 4

Valley of the Wind Productions presents...   
Odd One Out   
A Discworld fanfiction by Intrasonic 

* * *

Chapter 4

* * *

The author would like to take this moment to silence the rampant rumour(1) that this story is actually being written on-the-fly. He would also like to stress that this story is _completely_ planned out, start to finish, word-for-word. So anyone thinking that he's actually putting this story together based on only a few random ideas can stop thinking such _ridiculous_ thoughts.   
No, really. Would I lie to you?   
Incidentally, this would be a rather boring story if there wasn't some terrible and sinister plot in the works. And while this may indeed turn out to be boring, it won't be through a lack of a terrible and sinister plot.   
And also incidentally, the existence of a plot naturally means that the storyline is probably going to get a little muddled. And as I mentioned in the prologue, I'm forced to assume a little bit of knowledge on the reader's part regarding certain details. From here on in, sorry in advance. That stated... 

*****   
(1) Well, not _rampant_. But it probably has Plans.   


* * *

It was dark in the room, which was only natural considering that the windows were boarded up, the door was shut, and the roof had been patched recently. Even the room's walls were in decent shape, so there was absolutely no stray beams of light leaking into the room. It was also night outside, so there wasn't much light to sneak inside in the first place. In short, if you were looking for a dark and ominous location to carry out secret and occult deeds, this room was definitely on the top-ten list. 

In the darkness, a match flared noisily, casting its flickering rays throughout the room. In the dim light, if one looked closely, it could be seen that the holder was an elderly old man. From the way the match trembled between his wrinkled index finger and thumb, it could be surmised that the holder's physical facilities were probably past their warranty period by a considerable margin. Any sensible life insurance company would have shooed him out the door without a second thought. Even the cast of ER would have put him down as a write-off.   
But the eyes told a different story altogether. They had a glint in them that indicated that time had served to hone an already keen mind to something even sharper. And while continuous sharpening will eventually wear a blade away to nothing, this mind had yet to reach that stage...   
After several suspenseful moments had passed, the match's flame burned down the length of the stick and caused the fingers to drop it on the ground. It was, admittedly, quite possible that there wasn't much material left to sharpen with anymore.   
The old man muttered a few curses, then lit another match. This time, he quickly lit a few candles before safely extinguishing the match. Now that he could actually see where he was walking in the room(1), he crossed the sparse accommodations to a table. Upon this table, a lone object rested quietly, the reverence that the old man showed it indicating its importance in the upcoming scene.   
It was possessed of a rich, golden-yellow hue over most of its length, save for erratically interspersed spots of darker brown. It's slightly curved length was gentle and sweeping, coming to a blunt point at one end, with the other end looking as though it may have been broken off from something else, perhaps its parent object. It caught the light only dimly, but in a way that inanimate metals were unable to entirely duplicate.   
The old man strongly suspected that the banana was going rotten. And he'd paid two dollars for it this afternoon.   
Fortunately, his many years of life had taught him a thing or two about looking past the surface of a situation. And whatever else it appeared to be, the young lady selling the banana had sold a lot of things to people. And they had _all_ cured whatever ailment she had said they would. In light of evidence like that, you didn't argue with the results. So when you asked for a medicine to make yourself young again, and you were given a banana...   
The old man looked at the piece of fruit, suddenly feeling every ache and pain that his body had managed to accumulate during his lifetime.   
There were people who spent their entire lives trying to regain their facilities and strength they had possessed as a youth. And those people were all idiots. Why bother trying to train an old and worn body to be like a youth and healthy one? Old bodies were old bodies, while young bodies were young bodies. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't make one act like the other. Not indefinitely, anyway.   
But there was a simple solution: you could change the old body _into_ a young body. If you did that, you didn't have to bother trying to make something old act like something young. Instead, you'd have something young trying to act like something young, which happened naturally. It was quite simple, really.   
Like most "simple" things that accomplish a great deal, it somewhere involved a simple, _BIG_ step. But if you could find a way to _overcome_ that step...   
Picking up the banana, the old man returned to the centre of the centre of the room. Amazingly enough, there was little doubt in his mind that this innocent-looking piece of fruit was going to go down in the annals of banana history. But that didn't mean that it might not pay to have an open area to collapse in afterwards.   
Peeling back the skin of the fruit, the old man took a bite... 

*****   
(1) Fun Fact!!! We'd be completely overrun by evil forces right now, if they didn't always insist on working in darkness and secrecy. Many a promising cult had come to a messy and gruesome end, even as a devotee says 'Well, dang, those potions looked the same in the dark to _me_...'. 

* * *

Elsewhere, it was a quiet and sullen night. 

At least, it was trying to be one. Ankh-Morpork, the city that never sleeps, quite literally in some cases, doesn't actually get the _really_ quiet and sullen nights. They're only _sort of_ quiet and sullen. It's hard to be quiet and sullen when some drunken noble is staggering down the road with a bottle of Jacqueline Danielle and tripping over homeless bums who are just trying to get some sleep. 

An large arm abruptly reached out of an alleyway, towards the aforementioned drunken nobleman. Demonstrating the type of finesse and skill that the Watch can teach you, Detritus lightly bashed the man over the head and tossed the unconscious body over the fence and the next fence and the next fence into an animal stable. The troll then resumed watching the building across the street, skulking in the mouth of a nearby alleyway. Despite the excreta-orange tint to the moonlight, the sign was legible to anyone who was slightly literate, reading 'Stone's Herbs and Spices'. And, contrary to intuition, when given reason to, Trolls could skulk much quieter than humans could(1). 

Twenty paces away, and ten feet off the ground, Angua was also watching the same shop from atop a low balcony. It was during instances like this that she not only stopped being uncomfortable about her species, but actually felt damn proud of it. Perhaps there _were_ other races who could out-muscle her, out-stealth her, out-run her, out-sense her, or out-fight her. But none of them could manage _all_ of them. She suspected that Vimes had reasoned that out a long time ago.   
Briefly swivelling her gaze from the store under scrutiny, her lupine-vision had no trouble spotting her commander's form against the wall of another alleyway. He was probably wishing for a cigar. 

From his mildly cramped position in the shadows of another alleyway, Vimes wished he could light up a cigar. It was one of those things that simply _felt_ right, at least in a narrative sense of the word. But when you were staking out a location, you didn't dare provide a glowing ember to give them a chance to grab their weapons or start running.   
Realistically, the only thing keeping them from immediately rushing the building was the question of whether there was anyone inside. More specifically, the question of whether there was a certain Mr. Stone inside. Neither Angua nor Detritus could see anyone inside, and Vimes knew that he was already on slightly shaky ground at the moment. Despite a general laxness that surrounded some aspects of the city's politics, there were more than a few people in high places who would jump on the news that the Watch - more specifically, Vimes - had trashed a building and the wrong man. The fact that the Watch had 'accidentally' trashed the building yesterday and borrowed items for evidence would be more fuel on the fire.   
But producing a slab-dealer would probably be enough to silence any critics, because in this city, the ends could justify quite a few means. Using the slab-dealer to get to whoever was _really_ in charge would earn the Watch a metaphorical ribbon, which was much cheaper than real ones, and tended to be the only kind that Ankh-Morpork bothered giving out. 

The watchmen continued to wait. 

*****   
(1) A/N: Funny that. But I've noticed it on a few of occasions throughout various DW novels.   


* * *

  


"Corporal?"   
No answer.   
"Um, Corporal?"   
The second time was finally enough for several key neurons to click into place, assembling themselves inside the skull belonging to the aforementioned corporal.   
Nobby blinked, quickly realizing that the 'corporal' was him. It wasn't that he didn't _know_ that, but it wasn't something he was used to be called. Not on a regular basis, anyway. But being called by his rank for the past twenty minutes was slowly helping his memory.   
He kept his glance towards the ground, because it didn't do to accidentally spot a crime in progress. "Yeah?"   
His present assignment, a certain Lance-constable Irie, had no such compunctions, and was visually scouring the street for anything that could be considered remotely criminal. "So what else do we do?"   
Oh yes, Nobby recalled. He was supposed to be teaching her how to be a watchman. But he knew that if he did a good job, he might be asked to _continue_ teaching her, which was a bad thing. And besides, he'd probably run out of things to teach in the first hour anyway. Probably in the first ten minutes, actually..   
"Well, we _patrol_," he explained to her. Implicit in this statement was the fact that no further explanation should be needed. Nobby sincerely hoped not.   
Fortunately, Irie was _very_ good at coming to her own conclusions about matters. "So we're being _pro-active_ and going to find the criminals before they do terrible things!"   
Nobby shrugged. "Sure."   
"I'll bet that a city like this has _lots_ of criminals in it! Maybe even _thousands_!!!"   
"Prolly more. Mister Vimes says that _everyone_ is a criminal."   
"Well, we'll show those _men_ that they can't get away with breaking the law!"   
This was going to be a long night, Nobby realized. 

* * *

_o/ "...with a hammerhead shark if you nail it down first..." o/_

It was a good night for the Mended Drum. 

_o/ "...but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all!!!" o/_

This was the devout conviction of the bartender for the premise, even as he frantically tried to keep wiping the scum out of the used glasses before filling them up again. It was almost midnight, and the drink was still flowing - or in this case, oozing - at full force.   
Best of all, no fighting had started yet, which was the sort of thing that normally qualified as a twilight zone experience at this location. But the stream of coinage flowing into the cash drawer was providing an adequate anchor to his reality. 

"Y'know any other verses, miss?" 

It was proving to be a very educational night, the bartender had to admit. No one here, be they human, dwarf, troll or something else entirely, would have EVER thought there could be so many different verses to one song. And in the event that there _were_ that many verses, you didn't expect to learn them from some slip of a girl who looked like she actually bathed every day. 

"S'one 'bouta lion... don 'member all the... wordses..." 

Then again, it had been a night for the unexpected, the bartender had to admit. It was probably all the girl's fault. What was her name... Tockley or something like that. Anyone who could waltz into _this_ bar and start shouting orders, and most importantly, _have them obeyed_... you could probably blame anything on someone like that. 

"'member one abouta al'gator..." 

She was presently finishing off her eleventh helping of the Drum's not-so-finest, and she hadn't collapsed yet. To be sure, she was attaining a state of drunkenness that bordered on transcendent, and had made a lot of trips to the privy in between mugs. But the entire time, she was managing to stay upright and drinking, and her voice hadn't given out yet.   
More significantly, while her singing voice wasn't bad, if nowhere near professional, _The Song_ was absolutely _horrid_. You didn't even have to understand the words, because something in them transcended any spoken language. Somehow they managed to stir the deepest bowels of your imagination in a way that no education system had managed yet. He'd heard her recount verses involving snails, goats, giraffes, bears, turtles, and of course, hedgehogs. Previously, he would have thought that the jellyfish couldn't be buggered at all either. 

_o/ "...with an alligator if you make it real snappy..." o/_

In the meantime, the drink was flowing, and no one was fighting yet, and that meant lots of profit for the Drum. And the night was only middle-aged. 

_o/ "...but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all!" o/_

* * *

An indeterminate amount of time later, someone regained consciousness to find themselves lying in a heap on the floor. Normally this sort of experience was accompanied by various combinations of dizziness, nausea, headaches, and occasionally, 'what was I _thinking_ last night?', but none of those seemed to be present at the moment. 

One thing for certain, that had been one hell of a banana. 

It is a rare person who can awaken with full understanding of where they are in relation to the rest of the world. It's an even rarer person who can have their world altered while unconscious, and _still_ understand the world when they wake up. This person qualified nicely for the second category, simply because he stood up gracefully, without the slightest hesitation of lack of coordination.   
And that was pretty darn good, because he'd been sixty years older when he passed out. Being able to instantly bring more than double the expected muscle mass under normal control is something that is much harder than it looks, and it's just as well that most people are never expected to try. But a close approximation would involve a mermaid coming ashore for a hike across the Himalayas.   
Several strides brought him in front of a full-length mirror, which he immediately looked up and down with obvious satisfaction. Gone was the wrinkles and sagging skin that he had almost accepted as his fate in his life. In was the full head of hair and rather nicely-defined musculature that had nearly given up as lost. Against all reason and common sense, he'd just eaten a slightly-rotten banana and shed sixty years of age.   
He would probably have to go shopping for new clothing.   
Even better, his mind had benefited even more so. Gone was the cloudiness and indecision that he had fought in vain against for so long. In was the clarity of thought and razor-sharp decisiveness that so many young people frequently wasted in the process of getting drunk or laid, sometimes in that order.   
In short, this old-turned-young man, with a lifetime of experience, now had a body that could actually put all that experience to proper use. And he'd definitely experienced a few things over the last sixty years. He'd also learned some fascinating bits of information along the way, because it was amazing how easily people would ignore a helpless old man hobbling about the streets.   
It was time to see what someone, given the chance of a lifetime, could _really _accomplish.   
Prying his eyes from the mirror, the man turned to face another object, one barely visible in the room's flickering candlelight. It was massive, measuring well over ten feet high, and the shadows suggested a vaguely humanoid appearance. It was rather sparse as far as fine details were concerned, because it had been originally designed as a worker, not an art exhibit. 

It was called a Golem. And it was about to enter a whole new line of work. 

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, Nobby was attempting to enlighten his inadvertent protege in regards to various aspects the city he'd always taken for granted. Some of them seemed pretty basic as far as he was concerned, but apparently things were done differently in other cities. 

"I thought this street was called Short Street?"   
"Sure."   
"But it's _not_ a short street."   
"Longest one in the city, they say," Nobby agreed. "Bugger if I know who did the measurin'."   
"But you can't call a long street 'Short Street'."   
This statement received some consideration. "How come?"   
Irie's face screwed up. "But... it's a LONG street! And it says that it's short... and..."   
Nobby gave her an understanding smile. "Ah, you can't trust 'em, y'know."   
"You can't? Who?"   
"_Everybody_," he stressed. "'Specially all the nobs. The buggers act all friendly-like, but they're really just tryin' to grease you so you'll do whatever it is they want."   
Irie slowly nodded, her expression darkening. "I'll bet they're all _men_."   
"Mister Vimes says they're all a bunch of useless streaks who'd sell their souls if they could find anyone willin' to fork over a few pence and take the loss."   
"_All_ men are, if you ask _me_. And I'll bet that right now, there's a man harassing some innocent woman-"   
Nobby idly tuned out the rantings of his assignment. As many other people had noted on other occasions, it wasn't that the constant deluge of insults upon half of humanity was particularly offensive. As far as Nobby was concerned, most of it was actually complimentary compared to what was usually said about him.   
Fortunately it wasn't too hard to tune it out, then listen in as soon as something important was said. Working alongside constable Visit could give you a lot of practice in that sort of thing.   
"HEY!!!"   
Nobby instantly snapped to attention, his body instinctively switching over into flight-or-flight mode. He hadn't gotten where he was today without _not_ being in certain other places in the past.   
"That man's _littering_!"   
Nobby's ears almost rejected the statement. Out of several thousands available crimes in Ankh-Morpork, littering was pretty far down the list. Somewhere around 'Going too long without a nose-hair trim' and 'Having marital relations with a mousetrap'. In a lot of cases, the litter tended to be cleaner than the streets, anyhow. Put simply, there were better crimes for someone to commit, and better crimes to arrest someone for.   
Unfortunately, this fact seemed unknown to the Watch's latest recruit, even as she began to berate the litterer with a gusto.   
"...so typical that a _man_ like you would be so _thoughtless_ as to think you can just throw your garbage _anywhere_ you like!!!"   
The man tried to back away from the vocal barrage, but he'd had the misfortunate to be leaning against a wall at the time. "Ah..."   
"...people like you make me _sick_!!! You should be locked up forever and ever, except even prison is too good for scum like you!!!"   
Nobby hastily intervened on the scene. "Er... we'll let him go with a warning, this time, uh, Lance-constable. I think he's sorry for his, um, crime." Silently, the corporal mouthed the words 'Say Sorry' to the bewildered litterer.   
"Ah... sor-ry?" the man ventured, the words being alien and unfamiliar to him.   
"_Sorry_?!?" Irie growled. As with most negative expressions she attempted, it came out all wrong, much like a bunny rabbit trying to do guard duty(1). "_Sorry_ doesn't cut it!!!"   
Snatching the offending paper from the ground, she held it up to his face for close inspection. "Can you imagine what this world would look like if everyone just went throwing their garbage everywhere!?!"   
The man glanced around, clearly feeling that if everyone just went throwing their garbage everywhere, the world would look _exactly_ like Ankh-Morpork.   
Nobby thought so too. "Er... we'll get back to him when he does something really bad."   
Irie gaped. "But this man-"   
Nobby frantically mustered every ounce of authority he possessed, which didn't actually amount to much at all. But the fear of actually having to do real police work could serve as a good substitute. "Um... we'll be on our way, lance-constable. Er, right now."   
"But we're Watchmen!" Irie protested in horror. "It's our duty to make this law-breaking _man_ see Justice!!!"   
"Ah, I think he's seen it," Nobby assured her, meaning every word. And if the man saw any more of it, he might not be able to contain his laughter. "And he'll make sure he doesn't get caught again."   
Irie's face wore an expression of frustration as the litterer made his escape while he had a chance. "I thought we were supposed to be pro-active and stop criminals!"   
"Well, sure," Nobby reluctantly allowed, his mind rapidly scrounging for explanations. "You see... if you go around arresting _everyone_..." You'd wind up in a gutter, because a lot of people took exception to being detained. "...you'll miss the _big_ crimes."   
"The big crimes?"   
Nobby nodded, deciding to work with the conjured explanation. "Right. Y'see, there's all kinds o' crimes happenin' in the city. But some of them are just _little_ ones."   
"Little ones?"   
"Right."   
"You mean like... littering?"   
"Right. And some of them are _big_ crimes."   
"Like stealing and murder?" Irie ventured.   
Nobby shook his head. "Nah, that's all fine, as long as it's by the guilds."   
"Then what are big crimes?"   
"Er... you'll know 'em when you see 'em."   
"Oh."   
Something in Irie's facial expression was enough draw a tiny bit of sympathy from Nobby. "Ah, you'll get used to it all. Mister Vimes always says that bein' a copper's all in your feet. When he's not always sayin' something else, anyhow."   
"In my feet?" Irie looked suspicious. "Is that some sort of lewd, chauvinistic male remark?"   
"Erm, I sure hope not. I'm sure it'll prolly all make sense sooner or later."   
"Right!" she agreed, clenching her fists. "I'll learn _everything_ about this city and do my best to represent all womankind!"   
For his part, Nobby privately feared that he might be shortly forced to downgrade his opinion of all womankind. 

*****   
(1) No Monty Python jokes, _thank-you_.   


* * *

It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when something interesting happened. This wasn't to say that many other interesting things probably didn't happen in other locations, at other times. But this story won't concern itself with them, not unlike a person's desire to save ten cents at the supermarket overruling their concern about other issues, such as genocide and world hunger.   
In this particular case, it happened in the location where three watchmen were _still_ patiently watching a house called 'Stone's Spices and Herbs'. More specifically, a faint flickering of candlelight shone through one of the building's windows. Or, on account of an earlier incident involving a large siege catapult bolt and some chemicals that had absolutely no business being in a spice store, the big gaping hole where a window had once been.   
It wasn't much, but two of the watchmen possessed distinctly inhuman eyesight in the dark. And the third one had spent more than half his life patrolling the city at night. So it was that all three people saw a rapidly moving shadow scuttling around in the house, occasionally making quiet clatterings as it moved around the house.   
Vimes tensed up, letting some feeling return to his stiff muscles. It was time to move in for the kill. The metaphorical one, anyway. He'd recognize that short, overweight, shadow anywhere.   
Mr. Stone was frisking about his shop, and his motions were reflective of someone trying to be quiet and only halfway succeeding. Furthermore, they were strongly suggestive of someone who was attempting to make a run for it, after realizing that some rather important things were missing from his lab, and that they'd gone missing only a short time after the Watch had 'accidentally' wrecked their store yesterday.   
Thus, in keeping with the criminal - and Ankh-Morporkian - mind set, Mr. Stone was making a break for safety at night. Unfortunately for him, he was forgetting that not only did the Watch employ a lot of watchmen who's natural environment was nighttime, but it had originated from the city's old Night Watch. And judging from the muffled commotion inside, Mr. Stone was stupid enough to waste time trying to take some things with him. 

After a moment, things went silent. Then the front door was opened, Mr. Stone cautiously poking his head out. When his complete lack of night vision failed to detect anything, he left the building, closing the door behind him. Then he broke into a rather hurried jog towards the city gates.   
An inopportune boot in his path brought him to a rolling halt, spitting dirt. The bag he had been carrying fell to the ground, spilling a lot of round, shiny, metal things all over the immediate area.   
"Oops, sorry about that," a voice apologized from within the alleyway next to the house. It didn't sound very sorry.   
Mr. Stone cursed, scrambling to his feet and backing away.   
A pair of hands clamped over both his wrists, squeezing just hard enough to indicate that nothing short of heavy machinery was going to release them. "What's the hurry?" a female voice breathed.   
The source of the first voice came into the light, revealing a cheerfully-smiling Vimes, in the process of lighting up a cigar. "Lovely night out, isn't it? And I wouldn't try anything rash. Sergeant Angua's got a handshake like you wouldn't _believe_."   
Twisting his head, Mr. Stone was met with a not-cheerfully-smiling Angua. He was pretty sure it was just a trick of the light, but her smile didn't seem... quite right at the moment.   
"Anyway," Vimes continued. "You seem to be in quite a rush right now. And with quite a bit of money. For your own safety, you're being detaining at our convenience."   
"W-what is the meaning of this!" Mr. Stone demanded, trying to gather his wits and dignity. "I'll do no such thing! Release me at once!"   
The light from the overhead street lamp was abruptly blotted out, a fact which registered on Mr. Stone after several pregnant seconds. Twisting his head, he came face-to-face with a giant silhouette, complete with glowing red eyes.   
"Oh, and this is Sergeant Detritus," Vimes introduced. "I think you'll find he's got a real soft spot for slab dealers. Meaning that he'd like nothing better than to turn them into a soft spot on the pavement. But I'm sure you won't give him any reason to, will you?"   
"This is against the law-"   
"Only a _little bit_ against the law," the commander reassured him, "considering what we found earlier today. Remember that terrible and unfortunate accident here? Well, you won't believe this, but we found some interesting chemicals, and one of my officers tells me that they're so illegal and dangerous that even the Alchemist's Guild has banned them."   
Mr. Stone gaped."You... you _stole_ from my place! You'll never get away with this!"   
"I assure you, Mr. Stone, none of my men took anything from your store this afternoon."   
"That's right," Angua agreed, her grip remaining fixed. "None of his men."   
"So it's your choice," Vimes informed him. "You can be escorted back to the Watch House by Angua. Or you can be escorted back the Watch House by Detritus, and we can take bets on whether you'll be in any shape for questioning by the time you get there."   
"Y-you can't do this to me!"   
"Detritus?" Vimes inquired pointedly.   
"Takin' him back to der Watch," the troll agreed, sounding a little too cheerful. One of his hands/pile-drivers reached forwards, clearly intent of ensuring that Mr. Stone's feet would not be required for the trip back.   
"He has to be able to talk, remember."   
"I'll go, I'll go!" Mr. Stone hastily agreed.   
"I'm so _glad_ you agree. Angua, take him back and toss him in a cell. Then get Cheery and bring her back here. I want this place turned over before the sun rises. Detritus and I will start checking this place out for anything dangerous."   
"Yes sir. Mr. Stone...?"   
The sight of a troll at night, complete with glowing red eyes the size of many was something that inspired cooperation in a lot of people. Mr. Stone's instincts for self-preservation seemed to be in working order, because he didn't offer any resistance to Angua's steering him towards the main watch house. Approximately five steps closer to Psuedopolis Yard, various events   
proceeded to happen very quickly.   
For starters, the brick wall next to Mr. Stone's shop was ripped apart in a manner normally associated with dynamite.   
Next, Vimes and Angua both dove for cover as slabs of rock were tossed everywhere like exploding popcorn. For his part, Detritus stood there and let the chunks bounce off him harmlessly.   
Lastly, a massive shape entered the street, non-challantly brushing aside the rest of the wall like a stray confetti.   
"Dat's a Golem," Detritus informed all nearby listeners, even as they came to their own conclusions about the massive ceramic figure that had crashed the scene, as well as the wall.   
"What the hell is it _doing_?" Vimes spat, getting to his feet again. A flurry of movement diverted his attention for a moment. "Angua!"   
Angua was already running after Mr. Stone, who had thrown caution to the wind and was now escaping in a randomly chosen direction away from the chaos. Since the race involved a young woman/werewolf in her prime against an overweight, older man who was far past his prime, it was clearly destined to be a short race.   
Then the golem spotted them.   
Almost instantly, Vimes could feel his hairs trying to stand on end. He didn't know _why_, but he'd long ago learned how much crucial time could be lost waiting for answer. "Detritus, your crossbow!"   
"Didn't bring it," the troll rumbled.   
_Dammit_. Because Vimes had wanted Mr. Stone alive and the shop intact, of course. And while he didn't know why, he _did_ know that he would have traded a lot of cigars for a fully loaded and drawn Piecemaker right now. Breaking into a run, "After them!"   
"You're under arrest!" Angua snapped, grappling Mr. Stone, then tossing him over her shoulder in a unique interpretation of justifiable force. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll _stay_ arrested!"   
Mr. Stone hit the ground in a fashion that arrested his breathing, gasping for air and unsuccessfully trying to get to his feet again. A boot on his neck quickly made him give up on the second idea.   
"Now, where were we?" Angua asked pointedly, her voice carrying far too much saccharine to be legitimate.   
"Sergeant!" Vimes yelled, his voice rapidly approaching. "The golem!"   
It wasn't as though he had to remind her. While recent events, as well as Carrot, had done a lot to soften her views, she still had feelings of reservation and unease where golems were concerned. She didn't have to bother turning to know that one was approaching, as she could feel its footsteps through the pavement without even trying.   
But she would deal with it once Mr. Stone was feeling more reasonable. For starters, she'd ask who its owner was, and why that owner was letting its golem rampage all over the city like this.   
"_SERGEANT!!!_"   
That was when the golem hit her.   
Hard. 

* * *

end chapter 4


	5. Chapter 5

Valley of the Wind Productions presents...   
Odd One Out   
A Discworld fanfiction by Intrasonic 

* * *

Chapter 5

* * *

"Outta der way!"   
The demand was somewhat redundant, because Sergeant Detritus was the one doing the shouting. And when the Troll came running through the door, without bothering to open it first, people made way in a hurry.   
Right behind him was Vimes, carrying something approximately human-sized. "Igor!" he snapped.   
Against all probability, the Watch's resident surgeon was instantly at Vimes' side, which is a really impressive trick to pull on someone who's just entered a doorway from outside the building. "Yes, master?"   
Without any hesitation, Vimes held the object out before him, allowing all present in the room to eventually recognize it as one Sergeant Angua. It wasn't easy, because she was only a few steps short of needing dental records to be identified. One nearby officer fainted.   
"She's been hurt!" Vimes elaborated, agitation briefly overruling any embarrassment at saying something so redundant.   
"Blunt object?" Igor observed, accepting the body with little trouble. Igors tended to be good at judging causes of injury and/or death.   
"Something like that," Vimes agreed quickly. "Is she-"   
"I'll just take her downstairth and remove her armour," Igor assured him, after studying the Angua paté for a moment. "The werewolf will do the rest."   
Vimes visibly relaxed. It was what he had wanted to hear, but hadn't quite been willing to let himself believe it. "Good. Get on it."   
Igor limped off, leaving Vimes with the task of addressing half a dozen officers who had just seen a pulped sergeant carried through the doorway. "Alright... everyone with a job to do, _do it_. Someone get that officer awake again. Detritus, find Dorfl and tell him that I want to see him in my office five minutes ago. Someone else, wake up Carrot and tell him the same. And somebody else fix the door." 

* * *

_o/ "...but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all!" o/_

In so many ways, it was like watching a circus performance. No matter how incredible the dancing bears and the clown on the seatless unicycle were, every face in the audience would invariably focus on the sorry bloke balancing fifty feet off the ground on a strand of wire. After all, anyone can slip and accidentally sit on a bike without a seat, but sudden death tends only to happen once per person. And another amusing story to tell to the grandchildren someday was always welcome.   
It was unfortunate, the bartender noted, that no self-respecting grandkid was _ever_ going to believe this story. 

"Yer outta tune!!!"   
"S-sorry!"   
Considering that her mental facilities had probably been obliterated after the first mug of the Drum's brand of drink, one Lucy Tockley was approximately drunk to the power of twelve at the moment, rapidly going on thirteen. But aside from frequent pit stops, she wasn't letting it slow her down too much. And while she wasn't walking on a tight rope, a row of tables was serving quite nicely for her purposes. 

"Ye gotta practish more!" she admonished the thirty individuals who hadn't been completely overcome by drink yet. "How's y'gonna get any better?"   
The thirty individuals cringed beneath her verbal onslaught, much like a room of students does before an unduly harsh schoolmarm with an oaken ruler.   
"'orry, Miss Tockley..."   
"...practice more..."   
"...do better next time..."   
Lucy nodded sternly, and took another long drink from her mug. When it came up dry, she wound up and heaved it at the bartender, who barely managed to catch it. "Gimme 'nuther!"   
"But you've already had-"   
Fifty-nine eyes(1) instantly glared menacingly at the bartender, promising a world of pain, and if he was lucky, death.   
"-coming right up!" he hastily agreed.   
"Shee..." Lucy continued, stalking down towards the other end of the row of tables. "...s'no edjacashun happenin' aroun' here! Y'gotta all get a edjacashun! Den da wo-world's yer... thingy. Oil. Ointment. _Oyster_. And den y'can do whadev'r y'want to."   
All the faces nodded attentively, carefully drinking in every word.   
"Butcha gotta be careful!" she continued, turning around and starting to march down another row of tables, even as a part-time axe-murderer considerately pulled back his drink to make sure she wasn't obstructed. "Cuz if ye don't watchit, ye t'ink y'know e'rything!"   
Nod, nod.   
"An den ya try an' do somefin thatcha _can't_ do, an' then..."   
The listeners leaned forwards expectantly.   
"...and then... _BANG!!!_"   
Several drinkers accidentally upset their mugs and hastily scrambled to recover them.   
"'y'get yerself inna big mesh!" Lucy concluded. "Whersh m'beer!"   
"Argh! Coming right up!" the bartender assured her, running up and handing it to her carefully. Were she to somehow drop it with him nearby, he'd probably be lynched, he knew.   
Without even being aware, he'd become as entranced with the lecture as the rest of the room, the barkeep realized. Somehow, not only was this crazy girl sapping the patrons' will to fight, she was actually making them interested in what she had to say. They were actually calling her 'Miss Tockley' in a respectful fashion. Were he to question any of these hardened fighters right now, they would each probably swear that their new goal in life was to learn to sing in tune and get an education. And then they'd snap his neck as punishment for interrupting her.   
Lucy took a drink before resuming her monologue. "Shee... dats what 'appened t'me. Dere was elveses _e'rywhere_. Nashty 'lil _things_. Woulda been _real_ bad, but dere's _witches_ back home an' dey fixed shings up."   
This garnered a suitable degree of awe from her audience.   
"Witches?"   
"We's got some of dose down in der Shades."   
"And dey can tell yer fortune and e'rything!"   
Lucy kicked over a salt-shaker, although it might have been by accident. "Dere a buncha fakes!" she declared, face briefly going angry. "Cos... dere not _real_ witches! S'easy t'tell fortunes!"   
This was also received with a side helping of awe.   
"Shee, I'll tell a fortune right now!" Lucy finished the rest of her beer, then stared intently into the mug. "Ahm sheeing... anutha _beer_!"   
Mere seconds later, the bartender came running up and handed her another mug of beer, proving that his own fortune telling abilities were quite acute(2).   
"Bloody hell... Miss Tockley kin predict the future too!"   
"Inna empty mug!"   
"Nuthin' speshal," Lucy reprimanded. "Shee, _real_ witches ken do _hard_ shtuff!" 

*****   
(1) The more experienced members at the Mended Drum are easy to spot.   
(2) That is, if he _didn't_ provide more beer, his projected lifespan was going to be very short.   


* * *

Elsewhere, a young man was laughing inside. The reason he was laughing _inside_ was because only a short time ago, he'd been a much older man. And before recently obtaining the banana of youth, he'd lived long enough to know that secret plots didn't stay a secret if you kept bursting into maniacal laughter every time something was going right. But rest assured, inside he felt like a raven after Armegeddon.   
It really _was_ incredible, when all was said and done, he silently repeated to himself. A little science, a little history, a little magic, _a lot_ of common sense... you could pick up a great deal in an area of study without becoming obsessed over it all.   
Take magic in particular. He could remember becoming interested in it, a long time ago. But he could also remember seeing the demands that it placed on those who tried to master it. And those demands were harsh, unforgiving, and sometimes fatal. If you were lucky. So he'd learned everything he could, and then moved along to other aspects. He'd done that over and over, learning as much as he dared, then withdrawing before the demands became too great.   
It was slow and inefficient, leaving him an old man in due time, but it had been safe. But now that he had found a way to regain those years, he was in perfect condition to put that carefully gained knowledge to use. And as tonight had proven, his work was going to pay off in spades.   
Out of the many magics that he had studied, witchcraft had certainly been one of the more interesting varieties, and ripe with potential. Almost anyone could learn to toss a fireball with enough practice and study. But a witch could convince you that you _couldn't_ toss a fireball. The best witches could make you toss the fireball at yourself.   
Headology, a few of them called it. Not so much the understanding of people, but the understanding of what made people _people_. And then making them act like the kind of people you wanted them to be, all without their realizing it.   
Oh yes, he'd learned a lot from witches. One trick in particular was called 'Borrowing' - inserting your mind into the mind of something else, and then gently making suggestions to it. It was a very delicate and painstaking process, and obviously a dangerous one. After all, what kind of _idiot_ would try to make two minds occupy the space of one? Witches, of course, because some of them were just _that_ good. But anyone else would undoubtedly do very poorly, and might be lucky enough to regret the attempt.   
For himself, the man harboured no illusions about his own talents. Were he to try a technique as difficult as Borrowing, he would definitely come out worse for the attempt. But now he lived in Ankh-Morpork, and the widely circulated claim that you could find _anything_ here was no idle boast. Sometimes you just had to know where to look...   
Glancing sideways, towards a darker corner of his room, the young man's gaze fell upon the massive form of an inert Golem. It stood silently, a damp coating of river water all that marred its form. Without the holy words that it once carried inside its head, the eyes were dark and devoid of the more common, troll-like glow that most Golems possessed.   
He'd taken the chit containing the holy words out himself, and had no intention of putting them back in. Because the holy words were effectively the Golem's mind, and once removed, the Golem was nothing more than a mindless shell. And supposing... _just supposing_, that someone knew how to make their mind enter something else, with a technique like Borrowing...   
Why, there wouldn't be any trouble at all. There would be one body, and one mind to order it around. Perfectly safe and acceptable. And then, wrapped in the raw power and potential that a Golem embodied, you could _do_ things.   
It was time to _really_ get started. 

* * *

Five minutes later found Vimes sitting at his office desk. Bodily shoving aside some of the stacks of paper produced some desk space, which he immediately used to rest his head in his hands.   
It was going to be one of _those_ crimes, he knew. The kind that got blown completely out of proportion - in the wrong directions. The kind that would inevitably have the Watch cleaning up after someone else's mess, even as they found more clues than they knew what to do with, while some high-up, power-mad noble or ruler or other person laughed at their frantic efforts.   
Vimes just _knew_ it. And when he caught them, he was going ram every single useless clue he'd found somewhere uncomfortable and unpleasant.   
There had almost been a watchman casualty tonight, Vimes knew. Technically speaking, there probably _had_ been. And while Igor said that Angua would make a full recovery - and you didn't question an Igor's judgement on those matters - Vimes didn't even want to imagine the pain she was probably in.   
Saying that the unknown Golem had 'hit' her was the understatement of the year. Or at the very least, of the week. Without so much as a wasted motion, one of the massive ceramic hands had simply slapped her twenty feet through the air, although she probably would have gone _a lot_ further if a brick wall hadn't gotten in the way. The fact that she'd been wearing armour hadn't meant much, because what had finally fallen back to the ground, amidst the masonry, had been a flattened mess of flesh and iron(1), with too little distinction between the two... 

The creaking of the floorboards outside was enough to snap Vimes' attention back to the present. It was time to start finding the right buttock to prod. "Come in, Dorfl."   
The Golem strode into the office, giving a slightly mechanical salute. "Reporting For Duty, Sir."   
"Yes, yes, thank-you, constable. Hello, Carrot, sorry to wake you up."   
"No trouble at all," the captain assured him, appearing from behind Dorfl. "I heard that Angua's been injured."   
Translation: Carrot had probably already heard the rumours about what had been left of Angua when they'd gotten her back to the Watch, and he'd _still_ immediately responded to his commander's orders. It was the kind of thing that you got used to eventually, Vimes knew, although never entirely.   
"Something like that, yes. Now, in case you two haven't heard all the rumours flying around, don't bother trying to learn them. And in case you weren't aware of what's being going on over the last couple days, let me fill you in now."   
Both officers nodded expectantly.   
"Yesterday, we pursued one Mr. Finly, and _certainly_ didn't arrange for him to take a hostage in front of Mr. Stone's shop-"   
Carrot blinked in surprise. "But sir, I distinctly remember you saying for Nobby to-"   
Vimes waved the concern aside, silently muttering a few curses against the dwarfish inability to grasp, learn, or understand the concept of irony. "*ahem*. Anyway, yes, Mr. Finly mistakenly took our Nobby hostage, and yes, I instructed Detritus to aim a siege arrow so that it would hit Mr. Stone's shop. And _yes_, I had reason to believe that Mr. Stone was playing with things that were both explosive and unrelated to selling herbs and spices. And _yes_, I had Angua raid the place in the confusion and grab some evidence. And _yes_, Cheery determined that there were some very dangerous and illegal compounds in the evidence."   
He gave each of his officers a careful look. "And _NO_, that information doesn't leave this room. At any rate, a few hours ago, I took Angua and Detritus to stake-out the store location, and we caught Mr. Stone trying to do a runner with some goods. Does anything sound wrong about this so far?"   
"Well, I'm not sure if some of the methods are quite legal-"   
"Exactly," Vimes continued, cutting his captain off. "Nothing sounds unusual at all. But guess what happened right _after_ we caught Mr. Stone? We were attacked. By a Golem. Does anything sound wrong _now_?"   
"A Golem Attacked You?" As muted as Dorfl's expressions tended to be, it was impossible to miss the undertones to the question.   
Vimes chuckled mirthlessly. "Ah, you caught that bit, did you? Yes, a bloody Golem crashed through the wall and deliberately attacked Mr. Stone and Sergeant Angua. Which is why your girlfriend being taken care of by Igor, and why Mr. Stone is a puddle at the bottom of a big footprint in the ground." 

Somehow, that had been the most disturbing thing of all. After Angua had been dispatched, the Golem had immediately centred on Mr. Stone. Then it had smashed Mr. Stone into the ground. Then it had very deliberately stepped on Mr. Stone, leaving a foot-deep indentation in the process. Then it had given the remains a careful look, as though it wanted to be sure the job was done right. Then, without giving Vimes or Detritus a second glance, it had left as quickly as it had arrived. 

Vimes refocused his thoughts on his officers. "Dorfl, I don't suppose you have any idea what might have happened?"   
A worried flicker was evident in the Golem's glowing eyes. "A Golem Cannot Harm Another. The Words Prevent It."   
"That's what I thought. I don't suppose any of that 'Clay of my Clay' business is any help here?"   
"No. Before, We Created A Golem From Ourselves, But That Golem Was Destroyed, Along With The Bond. There Were No Others."   
"So no help there," Vimes accepted resignedly.   
"Couldn't we track the Golem?" Carrot inquired. "Even if they don't have much scent, this one would smell like Mr. Stone. Angua can't right now, but there are others who might be able to..."   
There were very few people in the Watch who didn't know of at least a few 'outside sources' to help get things done. But... "No such luck," Vimes replied. "The Golem ran off towards the river after that, and you remember how much luck Angua had when Billy Fairyfingers used the river to mess up his trail last month. She never _did_ manage to find his trail again."   
"We found the body, though," Carrot reminded him.   
"Yes, but I think a Golem could survive a dip in the Ankh. Anyway, we're going to begin inquiries tomorrow. Unless any of you have any better ideas, I'm sending some officers over to the scene right now to start looking for..." Here, Vimes made a face, "..._clues_. Hopefully, we'll find something before daylight.   
"Now, I don't want anyone panicking. Don't mention anything about the Golem to _anyone_. Word will have got around about Angua being hurt, but that doesn't mean anyone has to know _how_ it happened. Keep your ears open for any news that seems useful."   
Both officer saluted smartly.   
"Good. Carrot, for your next assignment, get your arse downstairs and see your girlfriend."   
To his credit, the captain didn't even blink at the surprise order, but saluted a second time and left the room.   
Vimes couldn't help but smile a little as the door swung shut again, but it faded too quickly for anyone to do a double-take at the sight. "Dorfl?"   
"Yes?"   
"I think you have some idea of the kind of mess we're in here."   
"A Golem Cannot Harm Another. The Words Prevent It."   
"Yes, we know _that_, don't we? But what are 'The Words'? Just a piece of paper with some fancy writing on it? You used to have a receipt in your head, you know."   
The Golem shook its head. "The Words Remain. A Golem Must Have A Master. A Golem Must Work. A Golem Cannot Harm Another."   
"What about you?"   
"I Am My Own Master. I Work. I Can Harm Another, But Choose Not To Do So. The Words Are Still In My Heart."   
Vimes took the information at face value. "Then... how do you make a Golem kill someone? Can you _change_ the words?"   
Once again, the massive head returned a negative answer. "Some Know The Words Already Written. But None Know Any New Words."   
"So someone, if they knew how, could get a Golem running, but they couldn't make it do anything other than want a master so it can work. But... what if you _left out_ the words saying that the Golem can't kill people?"   
This time, Dorfl hesitated before replying. "I Do Not Know."   
"Then that's where we start looking. Do you know any people in town who still understand the words?"   
"Some. Not Many."   
"You and... Constable Shoe go and talk with them tomorrow. Who knows, maybe Reg will have a few ideas too. It'll be a start, anyway. Right now, we need all the ideas we can get."   
Several minutes later, the office was blessedly silent again. Vimes took a deep breath, making sure his mind wasn't hesitating to provide any brilliant insights into the Watch's latest fiasco.   
No brilliant, or even dim, insights were forthcoming.   
Vimes absent-mindedly prodded the edges of The Paperwork. If he didn't know better, he'd have sworn that it was already beginning to cover the space he'd cleared only minutes earlier. One of these days, he'd have to do something about it, he knew. Just not right now-   
_Golem_.   
Vimes blinked, a stray word on one of the stray pieces of paper managing to catch his attention amidst the rest of the mess. Grabbing it, he gave it a closer inspection. _Golem_. It was definitely about Golems.   
Funny, he couldn't imagine why anyone would bother sending paperwork to do with Golems. Of course there had been That Business some time ago, but anything should have been burned during Sergeant Colon's brief tenure as captain... this paper must have been more recent...   
_...fore the wereaboots of the GoLem are nott yete nown, de spit ower beste efferts..._   
Some poor sod is missing his Golem, Vimes realized. His Golem disappeared, and no one could find it, so the fool finally sent a message to the Watch for assistance. That had been... almost a week ago, if the date was any indication. A faint numbness was beginning to work its way through his blood.   
A week ago, a golem had gone missing.   
An hour ago, a golem had redecorated a brick wall with one of his officers.   
_Dammit_. 

*****   
(1) This is true. For example, a steel-toed boot is good for protecting a foot, but if something   
manages to break through anyway, the foot actually has _more_ damage done to it.   


* * *

"So this is all part of patrolling, corporal?"   
"S'right. More beer, waitress."   
Irie's brows furrowed as she nodded in response to her commanding officer.   
For his part, Nobby had just finished his third mug of beer, and would shortly be requesting a second bowl of cow stew (1).   
"So by..." Irie's tone of voice clearly indicated that some complicated mental processes were underway. "...eating food here... instead of walking down the street, we're..." She faltered, at a loss to finish the sentence.   
"Patrolling," Nobby assured her, with all the innocence of someone who has little experience with feeling guilty.   
"...Patrolling," she agreed slowly. "Because there are crimes at the restaurant?"   
Nobby saw her head start to turn. "Nononono! No crimes here. _Definitely_ no crimes here!"   
"Oh." 

The incident with the litterer had been bad enough, but when Irie had tried to apprehend an assassin for attempted murder, Nobby had quickly seen his life expectancy falling like a party balloon tied to a cinder block. Fortunately, the assassin had clearly been a novice, and had accidentally shot himself in the foot with his crossbow while Nobby dragged Irie away at top   
speed. But there was no telling who or what the next incident would involve. So he'd frantically racked his mind for another, safer approach.   
Then Lady Luck(2) had been gracious to him. In other words, they happened to walk past Morty's Pub. And beef stew was two-for-one. 

"So drinking beer and eating stew is part of patrolling?" Irie was inquiring, possibly to make sure she hadn't misheard the first time.   
Nobby nodded enthusiastically. "Long history behind it (3). Ask anybody y'want to."   
"Wow. I didn't know there were so many things to learn about being a watchman. I thought all you did was arrest criminals all day. I think that's what they do in other cities."   
Admittedly, Nobby was under the same impression. But he was bright enough to see the downside of adopting such a policy. It would mean less beer and stew, for starters. "Well... er..."   
"Of course," Irie continued, "I'm sure that like Ankh-Morpork didn't become the city that it is by following everyone else!"   
This was likely quite true, Nobby had to admit. "Prolly."   
"So I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before other cities patrol by drinking beer and eating stew too! I'll bet this whole restaurant is full of men who would be committing crimes if we weren't here!"   
"Er... that's right."   
Irie's beamed. "I think I'm getting the hang of being a watchman! How long do we do this for?"   
Nobby thought quickly. As much as he would have loved to stay here for the rest of his shift, Morty would eventually start scrapping the bottom of the stew pot, and would start coming up with parts of the cow that even a butcher would be hard-pressed to identify.   
"Well... a little longer," he stalled, thinking frantically. "...then... we gotta... check out... _other_ bars."   
"Wow," Irie mused, considering the prospect. "There must be a lot of bars in Ankh-Morpork."   
"Lots," Nobby agreed, congratulating himself on that stroke of genius.   
"I guess that's why we're on shift all night."   
Nobby didn't actually cackle with glee. Had he wanted to, he probably wouldn't have known where to begin. But inside, he was definitely upgrading his opinion of recruit-training. 

*****   
(1) It's stew. It has cow in it. What more do you want?   
(2) As everyone knows, you're NOT supposed to say her name. So this seeming stroke of luck   
can obviously now be considered jinxed.   
(3) Sad but true.   


* * *

Being raised as a Dwarf does things to an individual's mind. Aside from the commonly noted failure to comprehend humour, metaphors, or figures of speech, it also neutralizes a great deal of an individual's sense of surprise. After all, when a mining shaft suddenly collapses, there's no time to stand there in shock. Serving for any length of time as a watchman in Ankh-Morpork is usually sufficient to finish the job. Even still, one Captain Carrot can probably be forgiven for, upon entering Commander Vimes' office, standing there and gaping in disbelief.   
One Samuel Vimes was looking through The Paperwork.   
"_Yes?_" the Commander inquired briefly, still glancing over one piece of paper after another, before letting them find their own way to the floor around him.   
"It's... good to see you hard at work, sir."   
"Shut up, Carrot."   
"Shutting up, sir."   
Vimes glanced at several more piece of paper, each one apparently unsatisfactory. Glancing at the floor of paper around him, he glanced back at The Paperwork, which seemed completely undiminished by the paper relocation effort. "This is ridiculous."   
Obedient to the word, Carrot nodded cautiously.   
"This is _insane!_ Do you have any idea how stupid this is? There's so much paper here that _ten_ of me couldn't sort it through! Look at this!"   
Carrot accepted a piece of paper, and scanned it briefly.   
"A Golem was stolen," Vimes growled. "An entire bloody Golem was stolen last week, and we were told! And we never did anything about it, because the damn message just got lost in this mess here!"   
Nod.   
"How many other important messages are in this garbage? Never mind all the stupid petitions and complaints. What about real, solid, useful information? There could be any amount of it here! For all I know, somewhere in here is a message telling me that one of my wife's housemaids is a fraud!"   
Nod.   
Vimes sighed heavily, sitting back down."Forget it. How's Angua doing?"   
Carrot finally decided that it was safe to speak again. "She's still unconscious, sir. But Igor says that she's healing nicely. It's a good thing you didn't try to get her armour off. Might have hurt her even worse."   
Vimes nodded, not saying that when something is forced through a meat grinder, it's hard to remove the bones afterwards without removing some meat as well.   
Carrot might have read that in his commander's expression anyway. "Igor says that she should be fine by noon, sir."   
"Good." At least, compared to the alternative, which involving digging a grave. "We need a plan, Carrot. A plan that lets us deal with this damn Golem _before_ someone else gets hurt or killed."   
"We can set up extra patrols."   
"And what happens when they find the Golem?" Vimes inquired pointedly. "Name one person in this Watch who would even have a bloody prayer of going up against a Golem without getting squished like a bug."   
"There's Dorfl, sir."   
"Name a _second_ person."   
Carrot was silent this time.   
So was Vimes. Both of them had been part of the Watch during the Golem incident, and they had both received more than a healthy appreciation for what a Golem _could_ do. Dorfl had grabbed a point-blank shot from Detritus' siege bow in one hand, and had taken all the BTU's the gods could throw without suffering in the slightest. Technically, a big enough mob with heavy enough hammers might pose a threat, but only if the Golem didn't fight back.   
When all was said and done, a Golem was your basic mixture of strength, speed, and durability. And on a scale from 1 to 10, each aspect rated at about near-infinite. Probably the only reason they hadn't conquered the Disc or been destroyed long ago was because they couldn't think for themselves, and couldn't follow orders to fight or kill.   
Dorfl was the first and only exception, and in the process of compensating for the aforementioned potential, was probably one of the nicest, most peaceable officers in the Watch. And it took a lot of niceness to compensate for a grip that could convert firewood into crude oil.   
"We have to find that Golem," Vimes restated, forcing his mind to return to reality. Unfortunately, that reality also included The Paperwork. "Gods, I wish I knew if there was anything else in this pile."   
"What about your organizer?"   
Vimes gave him A Look. "What about it?"   
"Well, they're quite popular, sir. Lots of people are buying the less expensive models these days. They must be good for something? (1)"   
The organizer was at the edge of The Paperwork, still undisturbed from where Vimes had left it earlier. The thing was clearly an insult to any remotely-intelligent species, even humanity, but even still... "What the hell. One more chance."   
Setting the organizer in front of him, Vimes allowed himself a brief scowl at the engraved 'Imp Organizer CE' on top of the box. "Alright, here goes nothing."   
He opened the lid.   
What emerged was a sound that, were an accurate description provided, might have involved about five days of built-up bovine flatulence being released over the period of three seconds, all inside a giant tin bath.   
Ten seconds later, both officers cautiously emerged from behind the pile of firewood, where they had instinctively taken cover.   
"What the _hell_ was _THAT_?" Vimes finally demanded, feeling his heart rate slowly return to normal.   
"Er... it sounded like..." Carrot turned red.   
"That sounded like a giant cat going to the privy with a stitched-up arse, that's what."   
"You mean you really-"   
"No," Vimes interrupted, cautiously approaching the imp organizer. "but that's probably what it _would_ sound like."   
The imp in the organizer was looking around worriedly. "Er... hello, insert name here>?"   
Vimes planted one hand firmly on the hilt of his sword, and used his other hand to lifted the organizer up face-level. "What the hell was that noise?"   
"You specifically requested that I not make the 'bingely-bingely-beep' noise when I am opened, so I switched to a different set of noises. Many people find rude noises to create an air of levity in stressful situations, which you could clearly use-"   
*click*   
Vimes put the box in one of his desk drawers, shut the drawer very deliberately, then turned back to Carrot. "Any more bright ideas, Captain?"   
"You could get a secretary, sir."   
Vimes gave him Another Look. "I don't know about _you_, Captain, but I haven't approved any of our officers because they were good at looking at papers."   
"You could rent one."   
"Rent one?"   
"Yes sir. Go to the Guild of Secretaries and ask for one. I hear the prices are quite reasonable these days."   
"There's actually a _guild_ for secretaries? I thought companies just got them off the street."   
"They used to, sir. But the guild was formed last year, after the secretaries wanted better representation and standards. I hear that all members are highly trained and skilled."   
"_I've_ never heard about this."   
"Word doesn't really get around, sir. They do such a good job when they're hired, the companies don't want their competitors getting one too."   
"So much for word-of-mouth advertising, I guess," Vimes agreed. But inwardly, he had to admit that he was curious. Could the solution to the problem really be _that_ simple...? 

******   
(1) This logic process pretty much curses our world to this day.   


* * *

"Corporal?"   
"Yeah?" 

There's nothing like a night-long patrol through Ankh-Morpork, interspersed with stops at random pubs, to make you feel philosophical about the state of humanity. _Especially_ about the state of humanity. 

"Why isn't there ever any _good_ graffiti?"   
"Eh?"   
Irie gestured to a wall they were presently passing by. There was some light blue scrawling indicating that Person A thought that Person B performed services that were possibly illegal and didn't always bother getting payment in return.   
Nobby nodded understandingly. "Heard about that one a few days back. Bloke named Jimmy Forthrite was sayin' how it was easy to give someone a bad name with graffiti, an' there was nothing they could do about it in return."   
"That's _terrible_!"   
Nobby nodded in agreement. "That's what I told 'em too. I mean, some folks got _ways_ of findin' stuff out, y'know? Come to think, I ain't seen Jimmy for a couple o' days now..."   
Further down on the wall, there was some more scrawling indicating that Person B thought Person A was talking out his posterior, and it would probably be best to not inquire about the particular shade of red used for the writing.   
"Typical of a _man_," Irie decided firmly. "I'll bet if there were more women doing graffiti, it would much nicer!"   
Had Nobby been possessed of all his wits, it might have occurred to him that there was no _correct_ response to that statement. Unfortunately, he seemed to have left a few of them behind at each of the four bars they'd visited so far. Not that he was actually _drunk_, because countless years of inspecting bars in Ankh-Morpork had built up some token resistance to weaker drinks like beer. And some of the stew served in this part of town could neutralize _anything_. Just the same, in another world, he wouldn't have seen anything wrong about walking into a Scottish bar and making jokes about kilts and sheep. "Don't see how they'd do any better job," he opinioned.   
Irie tried to give him A Look, and failed as usual. "Hmph! I wouldn't expect _you_ to understand! I'm sure that _you_ were never discriminated against, just because you're a woman!"   
"Well, I bet that _you_ never got turned out at the soup kitchen for tryin' to grab a bite of the Wednesday special!"   
"I'll bet _you_ never travelled halfway across the Disc to find a respectable job!"   
"I bet _you_ don't get frisked every time somethin' goes missing!"   
"I'll bet _you_ were never forced to drink _wine_ at every meal, while all the men got to drink brandy!"   
There was a long period of silence as the two officers continued to patrol down the length of Short Street. Someone was murdered in a nearby alleyway.   
"Erm... not that the wine's all that bad..." Irie grudgingly admitted.   
"-Wednesday's special ain't really all that good..." Nobby reluctantly allowed.   
Another period of silence ensued between the two. A dead body was hastily tossed into a gutter.   
"...but it's the _principle_ of the issue!"   
"...but it's still pretty keen for pract'cal jokes."   
The moments of silence began to get repetitive. The dead body was removed from the sewer and tossed back onto the street, where it would probably be less noticeable.   
"I decided to become a Watchman because I thought they weren't discriminated against," Irie mused. "Because _watchman_ isn't the same as _man_, of course."   
"Mister Vimes always says we're one big happy family," Nobby supplied cautiously. "Usually after breakin' up a domestic, mind."   
"I guess it doesn't matter where you are, you still get discriminated against."   
"They was pretty friendly o'er in Klatch," Nobby ventured. "'course, they figured I was a lady then, cos I was in-cog-neeto."   
"I guess I'll just have to _persevere_!"   
"Er, I dunno if that's legal in public..."   
"And before long, I'll be able to establish my independence and live up to my true potential and be an inspiration to those around me!!!"   
"Nah, you don't want to be doin' that around here. Best bet is to keep yer head down and don't attract any attention. Otherwise you're bound to get a bunch of nobs or crooks settin' you up for a fall."   
Irie looked rather crestfallen. "You think so?"   
"Yup," Nobby agreed quickly. "Mister Vimes always says that we gotta keep the peace, see?"   
"Oh. I never thought of it that way." Irie seemed to abruptly remember herself. "Ah, I mean, I never thought of it that way, corporal."   
"Always worked for me," he added truthfully. "Stay down, and nobody takes a shot at you. And that means you don't go tryin' to arrest people."   
"So... if you don't try to arrest people..." Irie's face took on the increasingly familiar expression of Deep Thought. "...there won't be any fights... and things will be peaceful..."   
"Er, sounds good," Nobby confirmed, rapidly coming to the conclusion that his protégé's explanations were sounding a lot better than anything he could invent on his own.   
"I can't believe no other cities have ever thought of that! In all the other cities I've been in, the watchmen keep trying to _catch_ the criminals! And there's _still_ criminals everywhere!"   
"Er, right."   
"So what's the best way to not arrest people?"   
"Well... you gotta act... cas'al. Just 'ave a drink and some food and relax, like nothing's wrong."   
"Just like we've been doing? But how come we don't just stay at one bar all night?"   
"Ah... they might think you're scoutin' out for some crimes. Mebe get the wrong idea, y'know."   
"Oh. And that might start a fight, and then they'd become criminals?"   
"Right. Just keep yer head down, and we'll keep on... keepin' things peaceful. At bars, I mean."   
"Right, corporal! Hey, here's a bar we haven't been to yet!"   
Nobby breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that the period of interrogation was over. At this rate, he'd never get assigned to training recruits again!   
Several seconds later, a prickly sense made itself known, for once completely unrelated to any hygiene issues.   
His trainee had spotted another bar? Check.   
She was entering the bar? Check.   
This was the corner of Short Street and Filigree Street? Check.   
The bar was called the Mended Drum? Che-   
Nobby visibly paled. "_Ohshit._"   
  


* * *

It had taken almost the entire night, and Fate was probably getting impatient, but tragedy finally struck at the Mended Drum. To be exact, the tavern ran out of beer. This is disappointing at any public event, but it bordered on cataclysmic in this case.   
Having run the tavern for some time now, the bartender was well aware that the only thing more dangerous than a regular visitor was a regular visitor who wasn't being given any beer. Any moment now, someone would demand another mug of beer, and he'd...   
...he didn't know what he'd do. If he was quick, maybe he could reach one of the side windows and escape. Maybe. Probably not. It was a lucky thing that most of their attention was occupied with singing in general, and the girl in particular.   
On the other hand, the bartender noted wearily, that crazy girl was probably the reason he'd just run out of beer in the first place. By this time, most of the patrons should have been unconscious from too much beer and/or bludgeoning. He'd always stocked beer accordingly, secure in the knowledge that the patrons would always run out of consciousness before he ran out   
of suds.   
Unfortunately, everybody was primarily occupied with singing, which gave them time to recover between mugs of beer. Even more unfortunately, the aforementioned crazy girl was convincing the men to _not_ fight... 

"Shee... ya gotta stop fightin' all teh time!"   
Needless to say, this statement was received with a fair degree of surprise.   
"S'bad thing if y'always fight," Lucy continued relentlessly. "Cos... an eye fer an eye... makes..." She trailed off, thinking hard.   
After a short pause, "...lots of eyes?"   
Lucy gave the answer what consideration could be managed after sixteen mugs of beer. "S'right. Lotsa eyes. Y'get lotsa eyeses everywhere. 'cept in yer head, so y'can't see anymore. So y'lose 'em and can't see."   
"Makes sense."   
"If ye can't see, y'can't fight."   
"S'bad thing."   
"So whada we do, Miss Tockley?"   
The spotlight was on Lucy again, even as she mulled over the mind-boggling dilemma. Clearly, fighting led to lots of eyes that weren't in people's head anymore. But if you didn't fight, what was the point of having eyes?   
"S'catch twenny-two," she decided.   
"Wut's that?"   
"Like when y'got twenty-two people wantin' to catch you. No way out."   
"What if they got no weapons? And you got a sword at their neck?"   
"Only one sword?"   
"Um... itsa real big sword."   
"Well... then it's not a 'Catch-22' anymore. It's a 'Kill-22'."   
Lucy finally spoke up again. "Ya gots ta wear helmets," she informed them. "Den y'can fight lots wid'out losin' eyeses. Maskses is okay too."   
"But we don' got any helmets here."   
"Or masks."   
"S'bad thing."   
"Singing's okay, though," Lucy assured them. "And so's drinkin'."   
"Where'd y'learn all der verses, anyway?"   
"Back home," she answered. "S'Lancre Witch sings 'em lots of times." 

* * * * * 

"I'm gonna die."   
It had very recently become a mantra for the bartender. Having discovered the window nearby was sealed shut to protect against burglars, he was beginning to realize that he was effectively trapped in a beer-less bar with twenty drunken brawlers who were still conscious. At least normally, they weren't actually _trying_ to kill him, so the occasional thrown axe could be ducked/dodged and disregarded. Right now, he was beginning to twitch every time the words 'beer' and 'drink' were mentioned.   
"I'm gonna die."   
NO, YOU'RE NOT.   
"I wish I could believe that."   
MANY OTHER PEOPLE ARE, HOWEVER. VERY SHORTLY.   
The bartender glanced nervously over at the lone stranger who wasn't paying rapt attention to that dreadful Miss Tockley. "Look mate, if you're looking for a drink," the man lowered his voice so he wouldn't be overheard, "we're kind of... er, _out_ right now..."   
MY GRANDDAUGHTER DOESN'T LIKE ME DRINKING.   
"Fine, fine." The bartender was experiencing a faint feeling of wrongness at the moment, but it was easily drowned by the not-so-faint wrongness that he'd been feeling since hearing verse fifteen of the Hedgehog song. The fact that he couldn't quite make out any details about this stranger was also ignored, because most patrons tended to look better that way, anyway. "It's been a hell of a night, let me tell you."   
ACTUALLY, HELL HAS BETTER LIGHTING.   
"I hear you, mate," the bartender avowed. "A word to the wise, that girl gets... _upset_ if she catches you not singing."   
SINGING?   
"Yeah. She's been getting them to sing the whole bloody night. Bugger if I know _how_, but it's freaky."   
THE ONES IN LANCRE ARE EVEN WORSE.   
"Yeah, I hear stories about over there, mate."   
"_Hey!!!_" a feminine voice yelled, sounding angry.   
The bartender froze like a deer caught in a pair of incoming headlights. Fortunately for him, Lucy's attention was focussed on someone else. By this point, she had already jumped down from her tabletop stage and made a beeline for the stranger nearby.   
Grabbing him by his arm, "Ya gotta shing too!"   
I AM NOT HERE TO SING.   
"Y'wanna shtay 'ere, yer gonna shing," Lucy insisted, clearly not making a question of the issue. To punctuate that fact, she immediately began dragging him back to the main group.   
I DON'T THINK YOU QUITE UNDERSTAND.   
"Cloakses s'okay," she assured him. "But ya _gotta_ shing. S'rules."   
ER... WELL, I _HAVE_ BEEN TOLD I HAVE A GOOD BASS VOICE.   
"S'good," Lucy approved, clambering back onto the makeshift stage.   
...EXCUSE ME...PARDON ME...THANK YOU.   
The surrounding crowd paid no mind to the new arrival. Indeed, one might have suspected that they hadn't noticed the entire past few moments, but that was easy enough to blame on the alcohol. Nevertheless, the patrons seemed quick enough to shuffle around to make room for him as best they could.   
"Now," Lucy announced, "Gonna learn how ta sing in 'armony."   
"Cor! Ain't that a place over in Howondaland?"   
"Y'mean Armoni? That's pretty far, ain't it?"   
"It's a kinda shingin'," she corrected. "Y'get two peoples shingin' _different_ stuffs. At the shame time."   
"S'easy to do."   
"Yeah. Do it all the time."   
"'cept it shoundsh _good_," she elaborated. "S'hard to esplain. Y'gotta all lishen real good."   
The resulting silence could only have been equalled by Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler offering to host a Bar Mitzva. Each and every person immediately gave 'Miss Tockley' their undivided attention.   
A problem abruptly presented itself. "M'beer's gone," Lucy realized, clearly Not Happy about this development.   
As one, all twenty conscious individuals, suddenly intent on murder, turned to face the bartender. Who screamed and dove under the counter, waiting for the inevitable shower of axes, arrows and swords to turn him into a human-shishkabob.   
There was another pregnant moment of silence, in which Lucy continued to mull between her now-empty mug, as well as the topic of singing in harmony, and her followers awaited the command to shred and puree the bartender like a stack of confidential and incriminating documents.   
It was also quiet enough to hear a pair of voices just outside the door.   
The first voice carried an air of terminal optimism and too many exclamation marks. _"Hey, we haven't been to this bar yet!"_   
A moment later, there was a muffled reply that lacked the punctuation of the first statement, but it contained a general air of urgency nonetheless. Whoever it was, they were further away, but sounded scared.   
The door to the Mended Drum swung open in a manner that could only be described as 'enthusiastic'. Through the doorway, a young lady in a watchman's uniform strode into the bar, giving it a suspicious glance that immediately centred upon the concentration of masculinity in the centre. "I'll bet that all you _men_ are-"   
She abruptly seemed to remember herself. "I mean, just ignore me, everybody. I'm just keeping the peace by drinking and eating at different bars, okay?"   
_That_ earned an impressive length of silence from the collective group, coupled with a quiet whimper from behind the bar counter.   
"Hi Lucy!!!" Irie greeted, her gaze rising slightly to identify the figure presently standing atop the tabletop. Another observation presented itself. "Wow! I didn't know you liked the nightdress THAT much!!!"   
"Y'wanna stay here, y'gotta shing too!" Lucy informed her matter-of-factly.   
"Oh. Um, I don't know if I'm allowed to do that. Let me check with the corporal, okay?"   
The source of the second voice finally ran into the bar. "Run!"   
"Corporal Nobbs," Irie wanted to know. "Are watchmen allowed to sing at bars? Because if we want to stay at this bar, we've got to sing too."   
Nobby swallowed, noting that every single patron had at least one massive weapon in each hand. They had probably drawn them for another reason, such as by reflex or for the hell of it, but their attention was presently on him and his charge. In this case, the correct answer seemed fairly obvious. "Er, yeah."   
"Great!!! What song are we singing?"   
"It called der Hedgehog Song," a nearby troll helpfully supplied.   
"Oh. I've never heard that song before. How does it go?"   
"Pick it as you go, that sorta fing."   
This sounded reasonable to Irie. "Just like being a watchman, I guess."   
She received a number of dangerous looks from the men around her. "Ere, we don like _watchmen_ 'round here."   
Lucy finally interrupted. "S'okay. Irie s'good friend."   
The air seemed to untense at that announcement. Clearly, anyone who was a friend of Miss Tockley was an okay person, even if they happened to be wearing an enemy uniform. To show willing, they even shifted around enough to provide a place to sit for Irie.   
"So how come you're out tonight, Lucy?" she wanted to know. "You looked really tired and depressed when I left for work!"   
Lucy sighed, suddenly looking very tired and depressed. "Cos... s'cures worked." 

* * * * * 

In the meanwhile, while the bartender was doing his best to stay out of sight, Nobby was a long-time master at the art and had little trouble spotting a fellow practitioner. Sidling over towards the bar in a fashion that would have made any crab green with envy, he lowered his voice to a whisper, so as not to be noticed by the scene at centre stage.   
"How many's she 'ad, Chas?"   
The bartender shuddered, still recovering from what he clearly considered a near-death experience. "I d-dunno... 'bout... fifteen... mebbe sixteen..."   
"You're not pulling my chain, are you?"   
"I j-just... serve drinks..."   
"An' you served her... _sixteen_ of 'em?" Nobby took a brief moment to be impressed. "Cor, but that's good!"   
"Urg," agreed the bartender.   
Seeing that no further details (or free drinks) were going to be forthcoming, Nobby returned his attention back to the group in which his charge was happily socializing. There had been a time when he'd have cheerfully walked into this place, on the basis that no one thought he was worth stepping on. Then he'd walked in with a newly-hired Carrot, and things had never been   
quite the same again... 

* * * * * 

"S'hard life, miss."   
"Rotten luck."   
Not that the regular patrons at the Mended Drum were normally the encouraging sort, except when betting on illegal dog fights, but they were trying their hardest at the moment.   
"S'sad day when a body can't even hock a few fake cures wid'out it messin' up."   
"It's all a conspiracy against your Quest for Independence!!!"   
Lucy stared gloomily at the table surface, much like she'd been after first entering the building. "Ain't a witch," she mumbled. "Tryin' e'rything. S'damn witch-y-ness don wanna go 'way."   
PERHAPS YOU SHOULD TRY A DIFFERENT APPROACH?   
"Er, mebbe y'oughta try sumthin' different?"   
Lucy shook her head slowly. "Dunno anythin' else. All outta ideas. Don wanna be a witch..."   
"Rotten luck."   
"Yeah. S'not fair, I say. If someone don't wanna be a witch, I say dey don't hafta."   
A muffled thump echoed quietly throughout the Mended Drum, even as the crowd looked with concern at the slumped figure, still clutching the handle of her oversized mug..   
"She ain't dead, is she? She et a lotta beer."   
SHE'S NOT DEAD. I WOULD DEFINITELY KNOW.   
"Er, don't _think_ so..."   
A quiet snore was heard from the slumped over figure, putting worries to rest.   
"Jus' sleeping, I guess."   
"I think she's tired. She's was working hard all day today, establishing her independence in this male-dominated world!!!"   
There was a moment of reflective, somewhat stunned, silence.   
"Er... Like I said, jus' sleeping."   
"Whadaya figure we oughta do?"   
"She just needs some sleep," Irie assured them. "Corporal Nobbs and I can take her back home. I think she's got to be at work in the morning."   
"I tink it is already der morning."   
"Oh. Well, I guess I'd better help her get home. Even inspirations and role models for female empowerment everywhere need to sleep sometimes!"   
Nobby finally interjected himself with as much tact as was humanly-possible. "Er, lance-constable, I figure we oughta get back to the watchhouse..."   
"Ah, really? We haven't even had anything to drink yet."   
"Um, special circumstances." Such as wanting to get the hell out of this place, ASAP.   
"I guess you're right. We need to help Lucy get back home. I think she's tired."   
"Er, right. Completely piss dru-I mean, completely tired. S'our duty to help her home."   
Unlike his presently oblivious partner, Nobby was already giving some discreet looks to the hulking brawlers around him. When he had first entered, the air had been rather tense, but not outright dangerous. Much like a waiting barrel of trinitrotoluene, chock-full of potential violence, but presently harmless. Like there had been some sort of spell previously cast over everything, which would explain a few things.   
Now, the pub's atmosphere was beginning to change. The spell was slowly fading away. As though the fuse had been lit, and the spark was slowly beginning to work its way towards the barrel. Nobby wasn't sure how to judge the fuse, but he was absolutely positive that he didn't want to be anywhere nearby when it finally reached the barrel. Unfortunately, he also knew that he didn't dare show up back at the watchhouse with his charge. And sadly, a small part of him knew that he might feel a little bit guilty if he left the drunken and sleeping girl behind in a building full of violence-prone, genetic throwbacks.   
"Alright, lance-constable, why don't you help the nice girl up? She needs some rest, right? Don't thank us, e'rybody, just doin' our job, doncha know."   
"Where're ye takin' Miss Tockley?"   
"Just back home," Nobby assured them hastily. "Definitely no trouble here! No trouble at all! Just makin' sure she doesn't wander anywhere _dangerous_ - not that the Mended Drum is _dangerous_ o' course - and keepin' the peace, right?"   
"Right!" Irie seconded. "There's no telling how many _men_ in this city would try and do something terrible and take advantage of her!!! You can't trust-"   
Nobby hastily clapped a hand over her mouth, although it was a bit of a reach upwards. He had a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the aforementioned men were probably standing right in front of them. And some of them were now paying more attention to their weapons, as though they were suddenly, consciously, realizing that they hadn't actually gotten around to using them all night...   
"_On the double, lance-constable!_" Nobby squeaked, using what little authority he was able to muster for the emergency. One of the trolls was now blinking rapidly, its brain wafting visible heat as it tried figure out exactly _what_ it had just spent the last few hours doing.   
"Um, yessir!" Irie responded, sagging somewhat under the weight of someone who weighed roughly as much as she did, and had spent all night drinking a considerable amount of semi-liquid beer.   
"Er, g-good night all," Nobby stammered for good measure. "A-another time, eh?"   
A slow chorus of nods rippled through the building, even as Nobby followed Irie outside, shutting the door behind him.   
Inside, there was a general consensus of confusion now present in the faces of the various individuals. It was beginning to dawn on some of the brighter examples that their actions could be considered roughly equivalent to a marine spending his free time playing with make-up and Barbie dolls.   
Slowly, cautiously, they dared look each other in the eye. Their expressions clearly indicated that a common decision was being made by all present. More specifically, absolutely no word of this night was _ever_ going to leave this building.   
Ten seconds later, because patrons of the Mended Drum have their own way of making sure incidents stay a secret, the first axe was thrown. 

* * *

_El stylus domini le swordus_. The pen rules the sword. 

Vimes gave the inscribed motto a cynical glance, which was what he gave most of the rest of the world. Cute, fluffy, and pretty damn-near meaningless, just like most mottos were. Even his own family motto, recently resurrected, was somewhat trite in lieu of reality. 'To protect and serve'?   
Ha! How about 'To deal with stupid politics and power-hungry snobs while trying to figure out what the hell the law was on any given day, not to mention who the criminals really were'? _That_ was a much more realistic-sounding motto. Admittedly, it probably wasn't as catchy.   
The aforementioned motto was engraved above the door that he was about to enter. The door belonged to a building, and the building belonged to a rather more obscure guild in the city. The Guild of Secretaries. As per their expected function, they were efficient, and rather unnoticeable. To be sure, some secretaries were noticeable, but _those_ frequently came from other guilds.   
The _real_ secretaries came from this guild, according to Carrot. Within its walls were people who could sort through any stack of paper, write hundreds of words per minute shorthand, and probably make sure the right papers got signed at the right times. One good secretary could increase an organization's effectiveness tenfold, whereas tenfold employees simply made the organization work only ten percent as well.   
At least, that was more or less what the advertisement on the side of the door claimed. Vimes was rather sceptical, since no one had ever bothered to mention this to him. It was almost as though many of his fellow noblepersons didn't _want_ an organized Watch in the city.   
Entering the building, Vimes had to give full marks for the interior. No gold trim, no silk curtains, and no tapestries on the walls. Rather, there were simply dozens of filing cabinets lining the walls, each one subtly creaking in such a way as to suggest that their contents might just spontaneously explode if someone was not present to see that they stayed the way they should be.   
It suggested the bureaucratic equivalent of a totalitarian dictatorship. All papers will be in their folders. All folders will be in their cabinets. The cabinets will remain where they are. The Secretary is good. The Secretary is your friend. The Secretary is to be obeyed above all. Serve The Secretary.   
In the centre of the field of filing cabinets, a Desk was positioned. It was big desk, the kind that required you to supply your own tree, and hire two trolls to deliver. In the unlikely event the surface were to be heavily damaged, there was ample material to simply shave the top layer off and start anew. It was the kind of furniture that archaeologists find in the distant future, still preserved beneath whatever natural or unnatural disaster befell the civilization using The Desk.   
There was also a figure behind The Desk.   
"Can I help you?" the figure inquired, looking at Vimes over the top of a pair of spectacles you could probably weld behind. It seemed pretty obvious that you didn't become a secretary for the easy life.   
"How come those filing cabinets are shaking?" Vimes asked. It wasn't why he had come, but the question was begging to be asked. Besides, asking questions was a kind of ingrained reflex for any long-time watchman.   
She frowned at him, her voice taking on a more clipped, brisk tone. "Well known fact that having too many words together can have dangerous side effects."   
"Side effects?"   
"Quite so. Extremely concentrated information in all that paperwork. Knowledge equals power equals energy equals mass. The floors are reinforced, or else the paperwork becomes too heavy to support. And of course, it works the other way around at the same time. Mass equals energy equals power equals knowledge equals intelligence. Time equals experience, experience plus intelligence equals sentience. Common knowledge, really."   
She gave him a patronizing look, clearly feeling that Vimes should stick to managing the rest of the world, while she handled the tougher issues, such as paperwork. "Very dangerous thing, paperwork. We're considering upgrading to the ferrous restraint system(1) in place at Unseen University. An out-of-control case over there if I ever saw one, but that's wizards for you. _Can I help you_?"   
"I'm interested in hiring a secretary," Vimes informed her. "I'm told that your guild was the place to ask."   
The rather wiry-looking woman nodded curtly, and instantly produced a form that made a heavy *thunk* sound when it hit the Desk. "We'll process your application immediately."   
Damn, but this _was_ efficient, Vimes had to admit. Perhaps Carrot was right, a secretary was exactly what the Watch needed right now. If anyone could find the papers that needed finding, that person was likely under this roof.   
"Business?"   
"Ankh-Morpork City Watch," Vimes answered, watching her rapidly scrawl the information down even as he spoke.   
"Type of business?"   
"Law-enforcement... well, law-observing, anyway. Usually observing."   
"Number of employees?"   
"Twenty-six steady, last time I checked. The rest come and go. I think."   
"Property owned by business?"   
"A couple of watch houses."   
"Central office location?"   
"Over in Pseudopolis Yard."   
"Level of secretarial management required?"   
Vimes frowned. "What are the choices?"   
"Most clients opt for the 'Normal' package. It covers basic organization and paperwork filing. The 'Plus' package also handles coffee duties."   
Vimes was, above all, a cynical realist. "Is there... anything better than that?"   
"There's the 'Comprehensive', which handles accounting duties as well."   
Vimes thought back to the mound of paperwork that was rapidly beginning to occupy his office. Not that he wasn't duly impressed by the sparing efficiency and evident capability that was flowing from this place like dust from Krakatoa, but... "Anything... better?"   
The secretary _looked_ at him. "You must be referring to our 'Troubleshooting' package."   
That sounded more like it. "That sounds good. Give me one of those packages."   
Another form *thunked* down on the table, rattling the inkwell on the other side of The Desk. "Sign this waiver, please." 

*****   
(1) Iron chains.   


* * *

Fifteen minutes later, a slightly bewildered commander of the Watch had entered the front door. He didn't even pretend to understand why he'd been required to sign documents permitted 'use of necessary force' or 'issuing of secretarial armour', but imagined that the guild probably knew what they were doing.   
So, despite the mild sense of bewilderment, Vimes was feeling quite satisfied with himself. The idea of an office with neatly filed paperwork, instantly accessible records, leading to the solving of all those annoying crimes... well, Vimes couldn't imagine it, because his imagination had its limits. But he was pretty sure that when it finally happened, it would be a good thing.   
"Morning, Mister Vimes," Sergeant Colon greeted, having jumped to attention the instant he'd noticed his commanding officer appear in the doorway. "The captain said you'd be gone for a while..." Translation: we thought we had at least another hour two to slack off.   
"No, just some quick business, Fred. Nothing like a little organization to make things go faster, I'd say. We've got a secretary coming over later on in the afternoon."   
"A sec-re-tary?"   
"Right. Pass the word around, will you? I think our paperwork problem is going to be over soon."   
Colon swallowed, as he was liable to do whenever the P-word was mentioned these days. "T-that's good, Mr. Vimes."   
"I think so too. Is Cheery back yet?"   
"Er, not that I saw. Didn't hear where she went out to..."   
"Just out to a crime scene. You'll hear the news later on today."   
"I heard something about Sergeant Angua getting hurt..."   
"Later, Fred, later. Go find Constable Visit, will you? Tell him I might have a special assignment for him."   
Even as the door to the canteen squeaked shut behind Colon, the front door creaked open in unison. Further musical accompaniment was provided by two officers struggling to carry a third person between the two of them.   
Vimes gave a cursory inspection of the three individuals, then focussed his attention on the guilty party. Nobby looked like he was only a few steps short of full hyperventilation. He was presently supporting half the weight of the third person, whom Vimes didn't recognize. "Nobby, Aren't you still on patrol?"   
"Er, special... circumstances n'stuff. We're lucky t'be alive!"   
Vimes could already tell it was going to be an interesting story. Usually Nobby didn't bother bringing back evidence of his stories. "I'll bet. Make it good. Start talking."   
"We almost got killed by an assassin and almost got bloody _lynched_ down at the Mended Drum and barely escaped with our lives!"   
Vimes scowled, filtering the story for believable elements, which didn't take very long. Turning slightly, he squared off against the person who had just spent most of the night in the company of Nobby Nobbs. "And lance-constable... von Celeste, wasn't it? You haven't run away yet, I see?"   
"No, it's-" Irie abruptly seemed to remember herself, quickly pulling off what could be considered a decent amateur salute. "I mean, no sir!"   
*thump*   
Vimes glanced downwards at the body that had hit the floor after the lance-constable had used one of her hands to salute him with.   
"Oops, sorry Lucy. Here, let me help you up..."   
"So what's _her_ story?" Vimes demanded, deciding that there was no point in belaying the inevitable.   
"She's a little tired-"   
"Chas' at the Mended Drum says she et sixteen mugs of beer," Nobby volunteered.   
Vimes blinked. "_Sixteen_ mugs? And she's still breathing?"   
"Lucy can do _anything_ she puts her mind to!" Irie insisted.   
"Right now, lance-constable, I'd say she seems to be having trouble with standing up. And what was she doing at the Mended Drum in the first place?"   
"_Shaddup_."   
Vimes raised an eyebrow, but quickly identified the source. "I'd say that she's coming around again. 'Lucy' was it?"   
"_Pishoff_."   
Irie winced, as both her and Nobby had their supporting holds vigorously shrugged off. "Ah, Lucy, could you please not say that sort of thing to my-"   
"Where da hell is diz?" Lucy demanded, fighting a valiant fight to stand upright without the aid of the two watchmen. Presently, it looked like a close stalemate.   
Vimes gave her a moment of consideration. He knew her look well, because he'd worn it himself for more than a few years. The difference seemed to be that she hadn't gotten around to falling unconscious in a gutter yet. She had the look of an average person who had finally been sucker-punched by life far more times than reasonable, and resorted to facing it with the help of a lot of liquid courage. He knew it happened to a thousand people every night, although he had to give this girl bonus style points for electing to try it at the Mended Drum.   
"This is the main Watch House. I suppose you have a good reason for making two of my officers waste their time dragging your drunken self back here, when they could be wasting their time somewhere else?"   
"I ain't drunksh."   
"Fine, fine, I'm sure Vetinari thinks Ankh-Morpork could use a few more productive lushes. Nobby, what the hell was she doing?"   
Nobby cringed a little. "Er... singing, I think."   
"Singing."   
"Yeah. I mean, teaching 'em to sing."   
"Shingin' da hedgehog shong."   
Vimes gave that statement more consideration than he'd intended. "Teaching them to sing. The hedgehog song. This girl."   
"Yeah. Sounds like she knew a few verses too."   
"Nobby, I've heard some crazy stories from you before-."   
"Honest! There were about thirty people there, and they were all listening to everything she said!"   
"Nobby, this is getting-"   
"Lucy's spent all day demonstrating authority and being an example for all womankind to follow!"   
"You mean, lance-constable, that all woman should start singing lewd bar songs and getting drunk off their rocker?"   
Irie flushed. "Um... except for that part, I think."   
"Ah ain't drunksh. Jus' drownin' all da witchyness!"   
"I'm sure. Look, Nobby, never mind _her_, what in blazes were _you_ doing in the Mended Drum, anyway? That's _not_ on Short Street."   
"Er..."   
"We were bar patrolling," Irie filled in cheerfully. "Corporal Nobbs has taught me lots of things! I never realized how many things there are to learn about being a watchman!"   
Slowly, Vimes turned up the heat on his glare, to the point where Nobby was visibly sweating. "_Yes_... and I don't expect you got around to learning any of them tonight, lance-constable."   
"But I did my best," she protested hastily. "I mean, I learn that you don't try to arrest criminals, because then you get fighting, and then you're not keeping the peace."   
Vimes mentally gave Nobby a seven out of ten for thinking up _that_ explanation. "Well, don't learn it too hard. You've still got a lot to learn, trust me. And some things to unlearn, obviously."   
Lucy aimed a glare at him, or at least in his general vicinity. "'ow come yer bein' sho mean?"   
"It's a gift," he assured her. "So if you don't mind, why don't you get back to demonstrating authority and being an example for all womenkind or whatever it was you were doing? Somewhere else for preference. One of my officers will be _happy_ to help you home."   
"Yer offashers took m'here," she pointed out, taking a step towards him. "Yer nuttin' butta hi-hippo-hypa-criti-cal bashtard. Ah ain't doin' nuthin'-"   
"If you're determined, we can try 'Disrespect for an officer' for starters."   
"Ah give ya dishresp-" A rather distressed look abruptly crossed Lucy's already flushed face. "Ah tink ahm gonna-*HURK*"   
Several very strained seconds passed by, with the onlookers looking on in morbid fascination and horror.   
Slowly, very deliberately, Vimes wiped his hand down his face. Idly, he made the detached observation that the Mended Drum's beer looked _exactly_ the same coming back up.   
"Ah don feel so good..." Lucy murmured, clumsily wiping her own mouth. The glazed look in her eyes indicated that her present verticality was only temporary.   
"It's going to get worse," the commander promised her, "if _I_ have anything to say about it."   
*Thunk*   
"Um, Lucy?"   
*snore*   
"I think she's out again," Nobby ventured, looking at the now-sprawled out figure.   
"Um, she wasn't doing anything wrong!" Irie insisted, although her tone of voice suggested that her vindication was wavering somewhat. "She was just... feeling a little... under the weather."   
"Under the drink is more likely," Vimes corrected, deciding that in about thirty seconds, he was going to do something that other people would regret. "I _suppose_ the Watch will just have to do its civic duty and help her get back home unharmed."   
"Really, sir?!? I think that's a _wonderful_ thing-"   
"And _I'm_ sorely tempted to harm her. So you can start helping her, lance-constable. Figure out where she lives, and get her back there. The first part is an important skill for a watchman, by the way. And the second part is physical training. And don't forget to show up this evening for your next shift. _Dismissed_."   
Irie looked rather winded as she staggered under Lucy's weight. "Um, yes sir."   
After several moments, the door shut behind her.   
"Kinda like kicking a puppy, ain't it?" Nobby ventured.   
Vimes glanced down at his thoroughly soiled uniform. Somehow, he doubted that the Vimes-Ramkin laundry facilities were up to fighting the better part of sixteen mugs of the Drum's not-so-finest. "And here I was wondering why I could feel my stress level going down."   
"Are you sure she's gonna-"   
"It's practically morning. And a watchman has to know the city, Nobby. Besides, I think she's bloody annoying. And I was about to let that 'Lucy' girl wake up in Igor's lab," Vimes took a drag of his cigar, only to find out that the flame had been put out. He tossed it in the ash tray. "Nobby, I'm going to find a clean uniform. After that, why don't we have a little _discussion_   
about 'bar patrolling'?"   
Nobby gulped. 

* * *

*CRASH*   
*tinkle*tinkle*   
Whirling around with his six-foot blade of steel, the barbarian prepared to gruesomely decapitate the next drunken attacker. Or possibly a knee to the groin would be used first, in order to provide a better opportunity for a forcible head removal procedure.   
No drunken attackers rushed to fight him.   
At that, no sober attackers were lining up either.   
In fact, and it was a testament to the intellect this man possessed, it was slowly began to dawn that there weren't any more attackers present in the Mended Drum. There was a bartender shivering and twitching fearfully from behind the counter, but he didn't count.   
I BELIEVE YOU ARE THE LONE SURVIVOR.   
"Ah... won?" the man inquired to the seemingly empty room, slowly grappling with the concept.   
THE OTHERS CERTAINLY SEEM TO HAVE LOST.   
The barbarian slowly surveyed the sea of dead bodies. Or at least, dead parts of bodies. One thing for certain, the floor was going to need a good scrubbing. "Cor, I never ran outta guys to fight 'fore."   
I'M SURE YOU'LL MANAGE TO FIND SOME MORE.   
You couldn't rush cognition with your basic barbarian, never mind thinking that didn't involve swinging a sword. "Ushually just pass out before the fightin's done..."   
WELL, MY WORK IS DONE FOR NOW. WE'LL MEET AGAIN, EVENTUALLY.   
"Wuz just drinkin here den..." Neurons fired frantically, trying to piece together what had happened the night before. This took some time.   
AND I WAS HOPING TO TRY SOME SINGING. AH WELL. GOOD DAY.   
Slowly, a picture came together, involving a lot of drinking, singing and hedgehogs. And some slip of a girl named 'Miss Tockley'. She was around anymore, but she'd definitely been here at one point. It had been very enlightening, to say the least.   
"S'lotta verses to the song," he reflected slowly. Several emergency neurons were brought into service at this point, under the promise of overtime pay, which helped coax forth a few more sketchy details.   
She'd learned the verses from someone else, hadn't she? Someone named... the Lancre Witch. That made some sense, even to his mind, since everyone knew that Lancre had lots of weird and strange things happening on a regular basis.   
Some people were probably going to have some serious questions about all these dead bodies, even if they _were_ in the Mended Drum.   
It had been a while since he'd done some travelling, and a vacation sounded like a good idea right now. Somewhere far away.   
Lancre sounded far enough away.   
Maybe he'd even have a chance to talk with this 'Lance Witch'? 

* * *

In another part of the insomniac city, a group of people were, for lack of a better term, hanging out. Not to say that they were doing so in a fashion typically associated with juveniles and/or delinquents, but they were fulfilling most of the criteria. The symptoms included the quaffing of liquor, bragging about past events, and keeping an eye out for trouble, in case there was a chance to join in.   
On the other hand, they were far too old to be juvenile, and had passed the 'delinquent' stage several decades ago. And they hadn't made any trouble for quite some time. The reason for this was the same reason they were hanging out together. 

"Bloody city's gone to the rats, I tell you."   
"Damn straight. I miss that protection racket I used to have going. Nothing like a few broken kneecaps to get some coin comin' your way."   
"Yeah, dirty deeds, done dirt cheap, and everybody knew it."   
"Whatever 'appened to those girls?"   
"Which ones? Had a lot of those, you know."   
"The wosnames, Hell's Belles, they called 'emselves."   
"Thunder-struck."   
"Huh?"   
"Got paid to tie 'em to a lightning rod. One of the last jobs I did, man. I miss those days."   
"Me too. Nevermind bloody murder, a fellow can't even do an honest-to-goodness assassination these days without getting a guild after him. Forget about stealing or getting a pimp racket going..."   
"Yeah, things used t'be better. Now all we gots is a slab run here and there..."   
It was at this point that the group of reminiscing individuals noted that something had changed in the room. More specifically, the faint light from the lamp outside had stopped coming through the doorway. In fact, something - or _someone_ - was blocking the doorway, which is never a good thing when the building was originally designed to be troll-compatible.   
"What the hell...?"   
There was a frantic scrambling for any weapons that could be produced, but the men hadn't lived as long as they had without getting good at certain activities. Within mere seconds, there was an impressive array of metal pointy things aimed at the new arrival.   
"I dunno who you are, but-"   
The arrival entered through the doorway. It had to duck a little in the process, but was now more illuminated for the room's occupants.   
"Oh _sheeyit_..."   
"... s'a bloody _Golem_!"   
"Don't sweat it. Stupid thing must've wandered here by accident. But they can't actually hurt anyone, guys."   
There was a pregnant moment of silence, because Fate has a funny sense of humour when comes to people who make those kind of statements. But after several long moments of anticipation, nothing drastic and/or fatal had yet occurred.   
"Er, right. So whadda we do with it?"   
"Tell it to go back to wherever it works."   
"Yeah, fine. But what's it doin' here in the first place? Nobody's supposed to know about this place, you know."   
"Well, Golems can't talk, so no worries, right?"   
The last statement hadn't even finished disturbing the air when the Golem took a step forward, in the process covering a distance normally associated with a giraffe. The floor, also laid down with trolls in mind, creaked slightly under the weight. With a terrible slowness, the two arms began to move.   
Eventually, the paralysed occupants realized that one of the hands held a chunk of chalk, while the other was holding a slate. This only eased the tension somewhat. Seeing the implements used for writing helped a little too.   
The writing on the slate was slightly askew, but still a step above what most of Ankh-Morpork's business was conducted with. CORRECT. I CANNOT TALK.   
Several ideas began to flicker through the readers' heads, none of them particularly comfortable to dwell upon.   
I CERTAINLY CANNOT TALK ABOUT THIS SECRET LOCATION OF YOURS.   
"Er, you can't _talk_ about it? Does that mean-"   
"But it can _write_ about it, can't it?"   
"Hey, what the hell is going on here?"   
"We're being blackmailed by a damn Golem, that's what."   
"Well, screw _that_. Ax, yer closest. Kill the bugger."   
*ding*   
'Ax' blinked as he looked at his trusty iron bar that had been dented from striking the Golem's arm. "Hey, this thing's pretty tou-"   
The next scene happened, as it were, in three frames.   
The first frame showed the Golem at rest, doing nothing at all.   
Frame two showed the Golem's offended arm turning into a fan-like, clay-coloured blur that happened to intersect with Ax's body.   
The third frame looked almost exactly like the first one, with the Golem once again at rest. The key difference was that Ax's body and head were a technicolour smear on the opposing wall. Ax's arms and legs were still suspended in mid-air, still untouched and unmoved.   
The arms and legs finally remembered to obey gravity and fall to the ground. The rest of the room was devoid of any physicists, but some calculations come naturally to those with self-preservation instincts.   
"Okaaaaay... nobody else try and kill it, got that?"   
The rest of the room nodded quickly.   
The Golem began writing again. I HAVE COME ON BUSINESS.   
"Er, what kinda business?"   
YOU ARE SLASH.   
The man swallowed trying to sink back into his chair. There weren't many people who associated good things with his name. He'd spent most of his life making it so. "What if I am?"   
I REMEMBER THE BOWS N' ROSES.   
Slash swallowed. Clearly his identity wasn't up for debate, which was probably a bad thing. "Well, yeah. Me an' Ax ran the gang real good, see? 'Course, that was a while back, right? And Ax, well..." Slash glanced at the organic graffiti on the wall, but not for very long.   
I NEVER LIKED HIS WHINY VOICE.   
"Er, sure, sure," Slash agreed, unconsciously trying to deepen his voice.   
The Golem's head slowly turned to look at the other occupants. I REMEMBER YOU ALSO.   
The rest of the occupants joined Slash in trying to lean back through their seats.   
TOMMY COCKRING AND HIS FRINGE LUNATICS.   
One man gulped. "Er, yeah, that was us. If girls are a highway, we wanna ride 'em all night long. That was our motto, right? Well, one of 'em, anyway."   
I REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE NOT SO PATHETIC.   
It was hard not to take offense at a statement like that, but Ax helped them all keep their hands off their weapons.   
REDUCED TO SELLING SLAB.   
"Gotta make ends meet, you know," Tommy managed. "That's life, right?"   
MR. STONE'S LIFE ENDED TONIGHT.   
The name was clearly familiar to all present.   
I KILLED HIM BEFORE THE WATCH COULD ARREST HIM.   
Slash coughed. "Well, I guess we owe ya for that one. Stupid little sod, I always thought. Couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it."   
EVEN IF I LET YOU LIVE, YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED.   
Silence.   
BUT I REMEMBER BETTER DAYS.   
More silence.   
BEFORE THE GUILDS CAME.   
Still more silence.   
WHEN CRIME WORKED WITH POWER AND DECEPTION, NOT LAWS AND REGULATIONS.   
Tommy nodded, unable to help himself. "Yeah, we miss the good ol' days, too. But they're long gone."   
I CAN GIVE YOU THOSE DAYS AGAIN.   
They all gave the Golem an appraising look. It was a ludicrous statement, but the written words somehow looked believable. As though the writer wasn't just making an idle claim...   
I WILL MAKE THOSE DAYS HAPPEN AGAIN.   
At this point, there was only one possible question. "How?"   
YOU HAVE CONTACTS. OTHERS LIKE YOU.   
"Er, I guess there's a few."   
FIND THEM. SOON, YOU WILL ALL HAVE YOUR CHANCE.   
"Our chance?"   
I WILL GIVE YOU THAT CHANCE.   
"So what do we do?"   
FOR NOW, WAIT.   
Several minutes later, the room was once again Golem-less. The remaining occupants were still staring at the exit, trying to decide whether what had just happened was a hallucination or for real.   
A glance towards the far wall indicated that Ax fully believed it to be real.   
"What do you make of _that_?"   
"I dunno."   
"Do you think it... was for real?"   
The one named Slash looked at his companions. He looked at the meagre pile of loose change on the table. He looked at the scattered empty bottles of cheap beer. "I dunno. But... if... if I see that chance, I'm gonna take it." 

* * *

"...an' den I gonna... gonna _sumfin_..."   
"Don't worry, Lucy, here's your bed."   
"...and den... I... I... I... dunno..."   
Irie led Lucy through their house into the bedroom. "Here's your bed, Lucy. You're just a little tired that's all. It can't be easy being an inspiration for womankind all day. And all night too, I guess."   
Gingerly, Irie eased Lucy onto one of the beds, sighing with relief as the weight was transferred off her shoulders. Sitting down on her own bed, she rubbed her shoulders to get some feeling back into them. "Wow, I guess I need to train harder to be a good watchman! I'll bet an experienced officer like Corporal Nobbs wouldn't even have broken a sweat!"   
"...ah don' feel good..."   
"Are you going to be sick again? I can help you to the back porch if you want. I don't think anyone will mind if you use the river."   
Apparently deciding that nothing short of some sleep was going to get rid of the rest of her body's aches and pains, Irie started digging through her luggage for some sleep-wear. "I wish I could be like you, Lucy. You're so strong and independent, the way you just take charge of things like you do. I mean, you've only been in Ankh Morpork for a few days, and you're already an independent business woman. I hope your employer knows how lucky he is!"   
"...tried e'ryt'ing... jus' aint w'rkin'... s'not fair...   
Irie now lay back in her own bed, clearly relishing being able to have an entire bed for herself. "And you're so _generous!_ You even went and bought a second bed for us! I can't believe how lucky I was to run into you like this!"   
"...don' wanna be a witch..."   
"I don't know if I'll _ever_ be as incredible as _you_ are, but I'll do my best too. I think I'm going to like being a watchman, so I'm going to be the best watchman ever!"   
"...nodda witch..."   
"That's right, Lucy. You just get some sleep, and you can wake up and keep on working on not being a witch. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you succeed!"   
A single tear slowly trickled down Lucy's cheek.   
"...don' wanna be a witch..." 

* * *

end chapter 5 


End file.
